Roses Behind Mirrors
by greyslostwho
Summary: “You’re gonna be ok, I promise.” He said, and it was probably a stupid thing to say, certainly a damn stupid promise to make, but he knew he had to say it. Because he knew, whatever it took, he would keep it. RxEm, AU, AH. NOW COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**A/N: This will be mostly Rosalie&Emmett, for now. But canon ships: Bella&Edward, Carlisle&Esme and Alice&Jasper too.**

**Chapter One **

"Emmett, come on! We're gonna be late!"

"Five more minutes." He groaned, folding the pillow over his head, shutting out his sister's voice. He heard, from outside his door, Alice's groan.

"Edward, we're gonna be late! Again! Would it hurt the pair of you ever so much to just _be ready_?"

Music stopped short, and a door slammed. Edward, going into the bathroom. An exasperated sigh from his sister.

"Emmett! Do you want me to come in there?"

He would have laughed. Little Alice, who was literally about half his size, threatening to come in and force him out of bed.

"You go on without me…" he called, "I'll take the Volvo…"

"You will not take the Volvo!" Edward growled from the bathroom, and another door slammed as he left it.

Alice sighed, audibly. "Emmett, you can't take the Volvo. You're coming with us. Now. I don't trust Edward's driving!"

Emmett groaned again, but this time heaved himself out of bed, pulled on some tracksuit pants and a pale polo shirt, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. When he opened the bedroom door minutes later, Alice was sat on the banister of their stairs, smiling her perfect little smile at him, swinging her legs. Edward, after the little quip about his driving, was leaning against the doorway of his bedroom, scowling at the pair of them.

"Ready?" Alice said brightly. Emmett nodded. Edward said nothing, but closed his bedroom door behind him. "I can't wait!" she gushed briefly, before skipping down the stairs, two at a time, and not stopping until she reached Emmett's Jeep. Emmett slid into the driver's seat, still yawning, and Edward, still scowling, slid into the back.

"I don't get it, Alice, how can anything be good about going back to school after summer vacation?"

Alice smiled that all knowing smile and ruffled her short black hair as Emmett revved the engine. "It's nice to have a change of scene. Anyway, I think Mom and Dad were getting pretty sick of the three of us at home, especially you, Em…. All you did was sleep!"

"I miss a lot of sleep during the school year; I have a lot to catch up on during vacation!"

Edward snorted from the back, but said nothing. Alice continued. "Anyway, it's your last year, Em; you'd better make the most of it. This time next year you'll be waving Edward and me off and you'll be off to college in a couple of days." She frowned, "I'll miss you."

Emmett nudged her lightly, turning out of the Cullen's long driveway. "Alice, come on, that's next year. Now, there are more pressing matters to discuss: like _why the hell are we in such a hurry to get to school?_"

She smiled smugly. "I have a feeling." She said softly, sticking her nose in the air and looking aloofly across the road into the forest.

"She has a feeling." Emmett repeated, glancing quickly back at Edward. Edward rolled his eyes at his brother, but neither of them said anything to Alice. The truth was, their sister was a little bizarre. With her quirky black hair, dark eyes and tiny physique, she had a strange-but-beautiful appearance, and her "I couldn't give a flying monkey what people think of me" attitude was enchanting, but a little disconcerting. In all honesty, however, Alice was one of the most precious things in Emmett and Edward's lives, their little sister, and they would do anything for her. Their mother, Esme Cullen, often joked that Alice was the only woman in either of their lives, and while the boys scowled and flushed when she said it, it was true in a way. Both of them adored Alice, and when either of them caught guys looking at her the wrong way…

"And…" Alice said theatrically, "I met the new girl who's starting in your senior class at the store the other day." She raised her eyebrows and looked between her brothers. When neither of them showed any interest, she added: "She looks like something out of a Victoria's Secret catalogue."

Edward raised his eyebrows for a second, then flipped up his phone, checking, futilely, for messages. Emmett kept his eyes on the road.

"Oh, come on, guys, show some enthusiasm! It's time the pair of you both found girls! I… I am saying this now-" she took a deep breath, "-I refuse to be either of you dates to Prom this year."

Edward's jaw dropped, but he rectified it quickly. Alice, for as long as they'd gone to Forks High School Prom, which had been every year since Emmett had started out as a freshman, Alice had been their "joint" date. It wasn't that the Cullen brothers couldn't get themselves pretty much anyone in Forks High they wanted, not at all. Emmett was huge, muscled and tall, with dark curly hair and something about his smile that made every girl swoon; and Edward was tall, wiry, with copper hair and bright green eyes, and a chiselled face not unlike a statue. Just, neither of them were particularly interested in any of it. Forks High wasn't a big school, and with only about 30 girls in every year – they just didn't seem to _click _with anyone. It didn't help that with Carlisle, their father, Chief of Surgery at Forks General Hospital, and their mother Chief of Staff, they were the richest family in Forks, living off the estate in a large house, set partway into the woods. They hadn't grown up playing in the streets and outside the diner with the other children, and whispers in the town of _arrogant, aloof _and_ selfish _had started their relationships with everyone at the high school off on bad terms. They sat together, the three of them, down one end of the canteen, and ignored the whispers, because all three of them had a hint of Alice's "I don't care" attitude. They had a few friends, Emmett more than the other two, due to his spot on the football team and the fact that he was out on his own in his year, but they preferred and enjoyed one another's company. For three siblings, they were very close. Maybe it came from the home schooling they had received from Esme and Carlisle until they started at the high school, or the secluded spot where they lived, but, although they sounded their frustration, anger and annoyance off each other on all occasions, they valued each other's friendship greatly.

"Oh, yeah?" Emmett finally responded, mainly to humour Alice, but a part of him slightly interested, "What's this girl's name then?"

"Er….Rose, I think she said. She was buying the same floral stationery as me in the Newtons' store. She said she'd come from New York, and she has a twin brother. I can't remember his name…" she smiled, "But she seemed very nice. A little cold, but maybe she was just shy…"

Emmett nodded, already bored of the conversation. Truth was: he was content as he was right now. Finishing out the last year he had in Forks, spending time with Edward and Alice, and then he'd be on the first train out of Washington, headed somewhere to study something. Anywhere, out of this tiny, suffocating town.

He pulled into Forks High car park, and by the time he had turned off the engine, Alice and Edward had jumped out of the car, over the sides. He checked his watch. Perfect timing. They had two minutes to get into their homerooms. He smiled at his brother and sister.

"I'll see you at break, guys?" he smiled, and then took off in the opposite direction, headed for his senior class, and his final year.

* * *

"Are you gonna be ready soon, Rose?" Jasper, tentative, unsure. No idea how to deal with her anymore.

"Five minutes! I'm just doing my makeup."

Powder, first. Everywhere. Covering everything, completely. Then eyeliner, a dark grey, outlining and defining. Mascara, just two quick brushes per eye, then the pale reddish pink lipgloss. Perfect. Now when she looked in the mirror it wasn't herself that she saw.

She didn't have to look at something she hated.

Running a hairbrush one final time through her light blonde hair, tossing a scarf around her neck, she tried to force a smile at the girl in the mirror. But the girl just stared back with dry, cold eyes.

She swallowed. No amount of makeup would hide the fear, the pain and the anguish in those eyes. Eyes she could hardly bring herself to look at, let alone properly look into. She sighed briefly, grabbing her bag from the end of her bed, trying to quell the nausea already rising in her stomach.

Back to normality… for everyone else it was that easy.

She steeled herself, her only intention to get through the day without going insane.

**A/N: Truth be told, I'm not really sure where this is going, yet. But I'm in love with Emmett and Rosalie. So, for now, please review.**


	2. Chapter 2

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter Two**

She was three minutes late. He knew that, simply because he watched the clock during homeroom, literally counting the seconds until he could get to lesson – that, at least, was productive. There was a tentative knocking on the door, and Mr Banner, his homeroom tutor, turned the door, looking through the small glass window, suddenly smiling madly.

"Oh, yes, I forgot!" he said, "Come in!"

The door creaked open, and it took a few seconds for the effects of the two people standing behind it to ripple through the class, but it brought silence to all of them. The boy who opened the door was unusual looking, slightly wild blond hair framing a slightly paler than normal face, and wide eyes staring out. His forehead furrowed, as if he was in mild pain. But it was the girl behind him that stopped everyone's thoughts from being anywhere else. She was as tall as her brother – because although Emmett wouldn't have said they looked alike, they were clearly related – and held her head high, poised, which gave her an air of self-importance. She had long blonde hair, reaching just above her waist, and it looked as though she'd just got out of bed in the morning and the curls had just fallen in the right place. She was wearing nothing outlandish, just jeans (but hip-hugging, gorgeous jeans) and a blue and white shirt (three top buttons open exposing just enough pale white skin to make Emmett's breath hitch), and a long white scarf.

Then his eyes travelled to her face.

In truth, and Emmett wasn't one to use cheesy lines like that, and stupidly long, romantic words – that was Edward's scene, but the girl's face was exquisite. Her features were perfectly positioned, perfect sizes… her eyebrows gentle, light curves, her lips plump and red, and her eyes…

He had to swallow when he realised he was looking her right in the eyes, and she was staring back. And her eyes were cold, as if she was used to the attention, a hundred times over, and she _resented _it. He knew before Mr Banner officially introduced them that this must have been the girl Alice was talking about. He supposed she'd been trying to make he and Edward pay attention with the Victoria's Secret comment, but it… it wasn't like that. She was so much more than that…

"Ladies and gentleman, these are our new classmates, Rosalie and Jasper Hale. They've come all the way from New York, and I trust you'll make them both feel very welcome."

There was a murmur of assent among the students of Forks High's new senior class, but everyone continued to stare at Rosalie.

"Miss Hale, if you could take the seat at the back there, next to Miss Clarke, and Mr Hale… there's a seat next to Mr Cullen there."

Emmett wasn't going to lie; he had been hoping Rosalie would be sat next to him, but he shook that off. The brother, Jasper Hale, slid into the seat next to him, giving him a crooked smile. Emmett grinned back, and stuck a hand out for Jasper to shake.

"Emmett Cullen." He said.

"Jasper." The blond boy said, "But everyone knows that anyway."

Emmett chuckled lightly. "New York, huh?"

"Yeah. No, I've never been up the Statue of Liberty, yes, I've been to Chinatown, and no, it's not like it is on CSI:NY."

Emmett chuckled again. He could get to like this Jasper guy. "I know. I've been there. My dad's a brain surgeon, he had to perform a surgery in Manhattan, and he took me and my brother with him, to do the "tourist thing"."

"Mr Cullen, if you could refrain from making acquaintance with Mr Hale until after homeroom, I would appreciate it…"

Emmett grinned, rolling his eyes, and sat back in his seat. Jasper Hale, glancing almost nervously towards his sister at the back of the room, did the same.

* * *

It was stifling, the looks she got when she entered homeroom. People, unashamedly staring right at her, without even a second thought to manners or propriety. She was used to that, of course, and there had been a time when she had revelled in it. But times had changed now, and she loathed the attention.

Except for that guy… what was his name? Mr Cullett? Something like that. The way he looked at her… it wasn't quite the same. She was used to being stared at in awe, hungrily, by guys, and with envy and distaste by other girls. But his look… and it wasn't a glancing look either, like the others, taking in the blonde hair, the long legs, the gentle curves, and deciding already that she was a piece of "hot stuff" or words to that effect. He'd looked right into her eyes, and she'd been somehow drawn to return his gaze. And what she'd seen in his chocolate eyes was hard to put words to. Admiration, bewilderment, pity?

The bell rang then; she had no more time to consider his look. She lifted her bag from her chair and stood up, keeping her eyes on the floor, knowing everyone else's would be following her out of the room. She walked a few rows forward and was joined by Jasper, who had been smiling, but as he caught the look on her face, the smile turned into a frown. He gave the guy beside him, whatever-his-name-was with the nice eyes, a quick grin, and then took his sister's arm, steering them both out of the classroom.

If the looks when she entered homeroom had been bad, the looks as they walked down the corridor were a hundred times worse. Jasper turned his head to hers, talking in a hushed whisper.

"Are you doing ok, Rose? It's not too late to leave if you can't do this right now?"

She squeezed his arm gently. "I'm fine, Jazz. Just a little overwhelmed. What lessons have we got?"

He checked the crumpled timetable he was holding. "You have double English Literature, I have Spanish."

She sighed, clutching her bad a little tighter. "How long d'you reckon it's gonna take for the staring to stop?"

He forced a slightly bittersweet smile. "Soon, Rose. A couple of days. You've just gotta get through the next couple of days. It's gonna be ok."

They'd reached the English Literature room. Jasper gave her arm a quick squeeze. "I'll meet you out here after lesson, ok?"

"Ok." She tried to smile, but the muscles in her face couldn't seem to remember how. Then Jasper kept walking and she walked into the classroom. There were a few seats left, along the back row, next to a big guy in a sports jersey, a leer on his face all too familiar.

"I'm… Rosalie Hale, I've transferred from New York." She said, walking up to the teacher, a nervous looking woman with big, thick-lensed glasses and salt-and-pepper hair in a slightly flyaway bun.

She reached out a clammy palm and shook Rosalie's hand. "I'm Mrs Bartlett, dear. If you could take a seat at the back there, next to Mr Johnson."

The big, leering guy. It was stupid, Rosalie told herself, but she couldn't seem to get the image of another tall, fair-ish haired guy with that same facial expression out of her head.

_Swallow, breathe, Rose. _

She walked to the back of the class, for once oblivious of the automatically swivelling heads, and sat beside him. Isntantly, the whiff of his over-strong aftershave hit her.

_Breathe in, breath out._

She watched him raise his eyebrows to another guy across the room, in a similar sports jersey. Another jock. Then he leant in towards her, in a way he must have assumed – wrongly – was seductive, and murmured, close to her ear, "How're you doing?"

_Hot, stinking breath, on her face._

_Hands, everywhere._

_Too close._

_That leer._

_Bile, rising in her throat._

She stood up suddenly, crashing her chair backwards. Leaving her bag right there, hardly able to breathe, she walked out of the classroom, headed anywhere, just out of these enclosed spaces, somewhere light, somewhere cool, she just needed to get some air…

Until she crashed right into someone.

Someone tall, her head only reached his shoulder. Someone with warm eyes, now looking down at where she had fallen on the floor in concern.

Emmett offered her his hand.

**A/N: This is so not productive for the exams I have in A WEEK. But I'm addicted to Human Emmett and Rosalie. I need help. ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter Three**

Rosalie Hale hesitated for only a second before taking Emmett's hand. It was warm, solid and strong in hers, and as he pulled her up off the floor, steadying her shoulder gently with his other hand as she tottered on her heels, she felt… giddy. Not Rosalie, someone else, for just a moment. Then she let go of his hand, and it all came flooding back. She'd been in class only minutes when she'd crumbled. It couldn't be like this, she couldn't be this weak. She ran a hand through her long blonde hair, looking at her shoes. Now, to get away from this guy.

"Rosalie, right?" he asked, and she met his gaze then, and again, like it had in the classroom, it almost burnt her. She shuddered slightly, but nodded.

"I… I'm sorry, I can't remember your name." It was the first time Emmett heard her voice. It wasn't quite like he had imagined it. He'd expected light, melodious, beautiful. Instead, it was a bit deeper, a bit darker, with a side order of bitterness to go with it.

"Emmett Cullen. I…uh… sat next to Jasper in homeroom."

"Right." She said, not looking at him. "Right. Well, thanks for helping me up."

He smiled, drawing her attention back to his face. He had a nice smile, wide and happy and not at all presumptuous. "Anytime." He said. "Hey, are you in this class?"

She nodded curtly, thinking again of the reason she had left the room. _Swallow, breath. _Fat lot of good that had done in the classroom.

"Me too. English Literature-" he gave a large theatrical yawn, "Waste of time, but anyway…"

She couldn't take it. She couldn't stand here and pretend everything was normal. The fear was clawing it's way back out from where she had instantly pushed it inside of her when she had seen this… this stranger offering her his hand, and this time she couldn't get rid of it. She shook her head, breaking the link between them – again.

"I have to go." She muttered, pushed past him and headed down the corridor, towards the doors at the front of Forks High.

Emmett stood there, stunned, for a few moments. He watched her swing open the big glass doors to the car park and then start running, regardless of the heels she was wearing, the fact that she had no coat, and no bag. He wondered, not for the first time, who she really was. Because she definitely was not who she appeared – some blonde girl with killer legs and hips that just-_not now, Emmett. _She definitely wasn't just that girl. He wasn't often a particularly observant person – that was Edward – but he hadn't mistaken the look in her eyes for a moment before she registered him, lying where she had fallen on the linoleum floor of the hallway of Forks High. It was pure fear.

He looked through the doorway of his English Literature classroom, but he had already made up his mind. He turned on his heel and sprinted out of school, after Rosalie Hale.

* * *

_Just run, Rose, keep running._

If she kept running, ignoring the blistering on her heels from those killer Manolos, ignoring the cold wind whipping her hair up so it hit her face and stung, she would be all right. If she kept running, she was powerful. If she stopped, she was giving in. Stopping fighting…

She didn't even know what she was thinking anymore, just that she had to keep running, keep going, not stop, not now, not ever.

Sense, out of place in her mad-world, came crashing down all at once. She was running through the forest on the outskirts of Forks High's campus, and it was a freezing cold Washington September day. And she'd run away from school, before the first lesson had even started. _Run away. _At that moment, she'd never loathed herself quite so much. She'd spent the whole summer trying desperately to convince Jasper and her parents that she was fine, she would be fine going back to school, simply because she couldn't bear to stay at home and mope over it all any longer. She realised if she spent too much more time in only her own, miserable, dignity-stripped company, she would go insane. So she had fought for this, so hard. Fought to move here, fought to go back the same day Jasper did, so no one knew anything was wrong. But it turns out she'd overestimated herself, and she wasn't up to this.

She was weak, a failure. Good for nothing, other than remembering, forever, how it felt to have every ounce of self-pride stripped away.

She stopped running, stumbling to a halt. She'd failed, and there was no going back now. They wouldn't move _again. _She'd be recognised now, in the corridors, the words would burn and bite at her like they had before:

_Rosalie Hale, did you hear what happened to her?_

_I heard she's got a bit of a screw loose now though._

_She's not quite all there, not anymore…_

"Stop it." She whispered to herself, in a futile attempt to gather herself. Miserably, she sunk to the floor, hugging her knees, leaning back against the trunk of one of the trees. Tears dashed out from under her eyelids, and somewhere in the back of her mind she realised she had no idea how to get back to the school, no idea what direction she'd run into the forest at, no clue how to get out. But right now, she didn't care. She hugged her knees tighter to her, some insane logic telling her that the tighter she held herself, the safer she would be.

Her sobbing continued, and everything was flooding back.

* * *

By the time he reached the bottom of the parking lot, she'd vanished. There were a couple of kids in the lot, leaning against their respective trucks and cars, smoking or reading their textbooks or making out…

He turned to a couple of the juniors, ones he knew by sight, the textbook-reading ones – probably the safest.

"Hey… which way did the girl go? Tall, blonde, wearing a blue shirt…" he trailed off. The first kid was nodding. Emmett couldn't remember his name – Eric someone?

"Yeah, I saw her. She looked kind of upset. Isn't she one of the new kids? I heard she had a twin brother-"

"Cut the crap." Emmett said, and the kid took a step back, seeming to register how huge the eldest Cullen brother was all of a sudden.

"She went into the woods – she looked like she was heading kinda towards the reservation…"

That was all Emmett needed to hear. He set off at a run in the direction Eric had pointed.

It took him a good twenty minutes or so to find her, and when he spotted her, about 50 metres away, he stopped short. She was curled up against a tree, sat on the floor, her head on her knees and her knees pulled up to her chest, her shoulders shaking. She was a tall girl, that was one of the first things he'd noticed about her, but she suddenly looked so incredibly small, hunched over like that, and so vulnerable. It suddenly occurred to Emmett that he had no idea what to do now. He hadn't been thinking when he'd followed her out of Forks High – he'd followed a crying girl he'd only just met. He wished, for one whole moment, that he was Alice. She would know exactly what to say to offer some small comfort. Part of him, the male "I'm afraid of female emotions" part, wanted to run back to school and look for her brother or the school counsellor or something, but another part of him, an increasingly dominant part, it seemed, wanted to wrap his arms around her and do whatever he could to make her feel better.

He took tentative steps towards her, wondering whether he should just sit down with her or announce his presence with words – what words? He didn't even know what was wrong with her, let alone how to even begin to go about making it better. But for some unknown reason he was strangely compelled to, and he was grateful when she looked up, noticing him before he got within ten metres of her.

Fear flashed in deep blue eyes again, but then it faded. She bit her lip, as if she was trying to force the tears down, but they still spilled over. Strange… it _hurt, _to see her like this. He took a few more steps towards her and sat down in front of her, reaching out a hand to cover hers, awkwardly. She stiffened, the moment their skin made contact. He withdrew his hand immediately, looking worriedly into her eyes, wondering what made her so scared.

"Don't touch me." She said. "Not yet."

**A/N: Wow, I'm on a roll today ;)**

**Review, please. :D**


	4. Chapter 4

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter Four**

He moved his hand away, running it through his tousled short hair. He sighed, again realising his inadequacy as a confidante.

"Should… should we call your brother or something?" he asked.

She shook her head quickly, swallowing so hard he saw her throat move. He hardly moved a muscle, just shifted imperceptibly, and she stiffened.

_She's terrified of me. _Emmett thought suddenly, like a shot in the dark at what might be wrong. He looked at how miserable and small she looked and – it hurt. He wondered, briefly, whether he ought to call Alice and let her know, or get her to find Rosalie's brother or something, but he didn't want to betray her trust. He had know idea what she needed right now, but some strange intuition he suddenly had told him that she needed someone to trust.

They sat there in silence until he couldn't bear it any more. "Rosalie?" he asked gently, probing slightly, but ready to withdraw the moment she asked. She looked up, however, and her eyes were no longer full.

"Yes?" she whispered in a tiny voice, as if she could hardly find the courage to speak.

"What… what's wrong?"

It sounded so lame, he realised, the moment it escaped from his mouth. It just didn't seem to encompass the massiveness of the trauma she appeared to be in.

"I'm all right." She said slowly, loosening her arms from around her knees and letting them touch the dirty ground either side of her. "I'm not crazy."

He chuckled lightly, and for the tiniest of seconds her whole body relaxed – it was deep, melodious, and soothing, Emmett's laugh. Then she tensed again.

"I don't think you're crazy." He said, smiling. She wished he wouldn't smile at her like that, like she was something fragile, something breakable. "I think you're scared."

_Breathe, Rose. _How the hell did he read her like that? Why didn't he think, like everyone else on the planet, that her boyfriend had broken up with her or something? He hadn't ever seen the scene in the classroom with that jock. He'd established the fact that she was frightened simply from her running, and from her eyes.

"Yeah." She said softly. He looked surprised, and in truth, he was. He had expected her to turn on the defensive and deny anything he said. It didn't occur to him that maybe she had no energy left to fight him.

"D'you… d'you wanna talk about it?" That was what a girl would say, right? A friend?

"No." she said definitely. "I'm fine. I… I just have to ride it out… it'll go away soon…"

"This happened before?"

She looked at him with sad eyes, wondering at his naïveté. But then, she guessed she couldn't blame him, he knew nothing about her, no more than her name. "All the time."

Emmett was struggling with himself. The moment was becoming more and more awkward, as Rosalie seemed to clam up more and more and all he could think was how he couldn't help, the only way he knew how to help would be to take her in his arms and clearly that wasn't an option, what if he was just making things worse?

_Cut the crap, Emmett. What would your dad do?_

"Are you hurt?" he asked softly, wondering if she needed medical attention or something, and realising he knew nothing about it.

"I was, once." She said; her eyes were bleak. "But not anymore. Not on the outside."

She had no idea why she was telling this stranger anything. In her panic, she couldn't even remember his last name. Emmett someone. She was telling Emmett someone things she hardly even told Jasper. She had no idea why, but for some reason she had taken down her false "I'm fine" front, and she was spilling out over it and…

Tears burst out of her again, and her shoulders shook with sobs. She buried her head in her knees once again, and felt the salty tears soaking through the denim of her jeans. She was shivering, it was freezing. Emmett seemed to notice that at the same time as she did, and pulled off his jacket. Not wanting to touch her, not wanting to scare her, he held it out and cleared his throat.

"Put that on, please." He said. She shook her head.

"I'm fine."

He swallowed. Maybe it was time to start being less of a girl and more like Emmett Cullen.

"I don't know what you are, Rosalie Hale, but you are clearly not fine. Now, please put the jacket on before you die of cold and I have to explain to the whole of Forks High that I killed the new girl!"

Was there a hint of a smile on her face as she pulled the jacket around her shoulders? It was warm with his body heat, but it was a comfortable kind of warm, not the stifling kind. She had come to know that there were two types of people in the world – and you could judge them by how they dealt with you when your world had been destroyed. The first type, the type like her parents, and all her friends back in Rochester, pretended that nothing had happened. They gave it a month or so and then it evaporated from memory. They didn't try to see past her pretences of normality; they were what they wanted to see. They tried to move forward with life, even when she was stuck in the quicksand of memories, drowning her. They were the type that didn't care enough to worry.

Then there was the other type, the type she knew cared about her, but they were in a way even more annoying than the first type. They were the people that treated her as if she was made of crystal glass, and the slightest touch would make her crumble into irreparable pieces. They were the people who would no longer look her in the eye, or disagree with anything she said, for fear they would scare her, and she would run for the hills and never come back. They were the type that were constantly asking if she was all right, if she needed anything, if she was coping, until she wanted to scream and tear her hair out and _really _run for the hills and never come back. They were the type who cared, but cared too much about the past, without a thought for the present. Jasper fitted into that group, loving but stifling.

And for the first time, she believed she had found someone who was neither. Emmett Cullen certainly wasn't pretending anything was all fine, but neither was he frightened of looking at her, wrapping her up in bubble wrap until nothing could touch her at all and she was completely numb…

But then, he didn't _know._

That was the problem. She pulled his jacket tighter around her, looked up into his eyes, unafraid. He was caring, but not about cushioning her emotions. He didn't want her to be _cold, _something that would unfathomable to anyone else because they were all too busy pretending not to notice her, or refusing to let her out of her own house. She swallowed again, but this time it wasn't forcing anything down. It was a realisation that she was safe.

Entirely safe, with this guy, in the middle of the forest. After she'd sworn never to trust a man again.

He looked down at her beautiful face, registering again the perfection of it, but also smiling slightly as he saw the vulnerability in her eyes, and the… _trust _beginning to form in them.

"You're going to be ok." He said, "I don't know how, yet, but you're going to be ok."

And he reached out a hand, an offering of comfort.

Rosalie Hale put her hand in his.

**A/N: Phew, that was hard to write! I have to keep forcing myself to remember that they've only just met, and Rosalie wouldn't really be telling Emmett anything, but then I want them to have that instant connection between them. Hmmmmm… it's a dilemma. I guess I'm gonna go with the excuse that Rose is completely screwed up at the moment, and Emmett gets completely under her skin, but by being there, he's beginning to gain her trust… I dunno. Gah. Review.**


	5. Chapter 5

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter Five**

Jasper Hale's phone buzzed sometime during Spanish, and he spent the next fifteen minutes trying to work out how to read his message without inflicting the wrath of Senora Lamella, who was clearly a very hot-tempered woman, from the way she had shouted at the little dark haired girl who had been two minutes late to class. The girl, who could only have been just over five foot, had smiled right at the slightly insane looking Spanish woman and returned something in vigorous Spanish, which seemed to calm the teacher. The girl, spiky black hair dancing around her face, had slid herself into the empty seat next to Jasper with a smile.

"Hi. I'm Alice." She'd said, her eyes sparkling.

"Jasper." He choked.

He'd been instantly captivated.

Alice knew exactly the effect she was having on this strange new face – she had already put two and two together and worked out that this was the beautiful new girl's brother. He kept darting looks at her for the majority of the lesson, and Alice, although already near to fluent in Spanish, had to force herself to focus. He wasn't conventionally good-looking, he had a permanently slightly pained expression and wild hair, but his eyes were full of truth and light and she found herself settling into his company with an ease that only she possessed.

Finally, Senora Lamella turned to write something on the board, and Jasper checked his phone.

HI, IT'S EMMETT FROM HOMEROOM. ROSALIES IN SOME TROUBLE. IN THE FOREST JUST NORTH OF THE PARKING LOT. ABOUT TWO MINUTES WALK IN. SORRY.

Jasper's breathing hitched.

"What is it?" Alice whispered, and any other day he would have been astounded at the observant quality she possessed, but right now he could think of nothing other than his sister.

"I have to go." He muttered under his breath.

She gave him a wide-eyed stared, raising her eyebrows towards the teacher, who was slowly turning back around, eyes angry.

"I'll have to make a run for it." He muttered, and Alice smiled a little, then looked worried.

"You ok?"

"I am. Dunno about Rose. Look…"

"Senor Hale, ¿hay algo que te gustaría compartir con nosotros?" she asked, and Jasper looked at her, confused. He'd never been one for languages, not really, and in his current state of panic, there was no way he was going to struggle with that translation.

"No, Senora." Alice finished for him, "Tenemos que ir."

And with that, she grabbed her bag from the back of her chair, and looked at Jasper, hissing, "Come on, then!" under her breath, before heading full out of the classroom. He hardly had time to think before he stood up, following her. Senora Lamella hardly had time to protest, but as they dashed down the corridor, Alice was surprisingly fast for such a little person, and burst out into the parking lot, where Jasper stopped to gather himself for a second.

"What are you doing?"

She shrugged. "I'm sorry, I couldn't help glancing at your text… and well, Emmett's my brother, and I figured you might need a little help finding them in the forest – is Rosalie ok?"

Jasper gritted his teeth. Had she been any other person, he would have resented her reading over his shoulder. But she was Alice Cullen, beautiful, enchanting, bizarre, and for some reason, he was _grateful._

"I don't know. This is all I know. Which way are they?"

Alice smiled at him briefly, and her dark eyes glowed. Then she set off towards the forest.

"You seem pretty worried." She observed, "Is Rosalie sick?"

Jasper shook his head slowly. "Not in the way you mean it." _Why the hell was he telling her anything? _He should have sent her right back to school, but something about her just drew him in, made him ready to reveal everything to their striking little girl.

Alice frowned, and looked across at him, as if she was expecting more. He complied.

"She's…a bad thing happened to her, about six months back… and she hasn't fully recovered… it's hard to know what to do, how to look after her… it's why we moved here, so she could go back to school where people didn't know anything about it… but sometimes I just don't know how to take care of her… she puts up this wall a pretends she's ok, but I know she isn't, and-"

He literally had to bite his tongue to stop everything spilling out then. Alice gave him a warm, small smile. "It looks to me like you're doing a good job of looking after her. I don't know many brothers who would go blindly wandering into a forest after their sisters…"

She didn't mention that she was a hundred percent certain hers would, without a second thought. Then she thought about how Emmett had clearly gone after Rosalie, and smiled. The size of her oldest brother seemed to parallel the size of his heart. Edward was the same, but it was under layers of coolness and sarcasm. Hidden deeper than Emmett's genuine kindness.

That was when she saw them. Rosalie, the new girl, was sat on the ground, against a tree, hugging her knees. Emmett was crouched beside her, holding onto one of her hands. As the pair of them ran closer, Alice could see tears tracks down the other girl's face, but her eyes were now dry. Emmett was murmuring something to her, and she seemed to be calming.

"Rose!" Jasper sprinted the last fifty metres or so to his sister. Emmett let go of her hand, and stood up. Jasper wrapped Rosalie in his arms and rocked her gently, but she didn't start crying again. Alice caught up, and Emmett spun at the sound of her footsteps.

"Hey." She whispered, walking up to him, averting her eyes from the raw display of emotion Rosalie was letting Jasper, and only Jasper, see.

"Hey." He said, and she was shocked at his tone. He sounded _tired. _Emmett, always was bounding and full of energy, almost defeated. She looked to the Hale twins. This had something to do with _that girl, _it had to.

"What happened?"

"She bolted." Emmett said, "I probably shouldn't have, but I followed her out here. I… I don't really know what's wrong, but I think she'll be ok."

For the first time, Alice noticed Rosalie was wearing her brother's coat. She smiled a little at him.

"I came with Jasper, when I saw the text you sent."

"You know Jasper?"

"I take Senior Spanish, Emmett."

He nodded. "I… I thought about calling you. I didn't really know what to say to her."

Alice looked at Rosalie, who had been talking, quite calmly to Jasper, and was now standing up, righting her hair and brushing the dirt off her jeans.

"You know, Emm, I think you said the right thing."

LINE

"I'm fine, Jazz. Actually, this time, I am." She said, standing up, tall and _strong._

He didn't miss the way her eyes darted across to the other guy, the tall, muscular guy he'd met just over an hour ago in homeroom. Jasper looked across at him too – he seemed nice, but he couldn't understand how his sister, who had been totally unreachable these past six months, by anyone, by him, by their parents, by her best friend Vera, could be comforted by some stranger from Forks High. To him, it didn't add up. He watched her walk over to him, attempting to hand back the coat. He shook his head, a smile surfacing on his face. Rosalie scowled a little, but wrapped the coat tighter around her. He frowned. Had she told him? There was no way she was in any state to have told _that story _again. She had struggled out with it once to him the moment she had stumbled home, and through tears and retching in the police station the next day. But since then, no word of it had ever escaped her lips. He couldn't believe that she would have told him.

Anyway, the smiling look in his eyes, like he had just solved everything, meant he couldn't possibly know. Because if he knew, really _knew, _he would know Rosalie was beyond ever being put quite right, that she would always somehow be broken. Therefore, he came to the conclusion that this big guy had no idea what had happened, but somehow he had managed to calm Rose in less than an hour. Usually, when she had these breakdowns, it would take days for her to even respond to what other people were saying. He guessed this guy, oblivious to the brutal truth, had seemed like a breath of fresh air and she had just pushed all her feelings down behind her walls again. That must be it.

"She ok now?" Alice asked, looking worriedly right into his eyes. That was another unsettling thing about her – there was no shame, no polite modesty, in her stare. She looked right into eyes – right into him, but instead of finding it embarrassing, it seemed… refreshing.

"For now." He murmured, and watched Rosalie and Emmett start heading off back towards Forks High. Wordlessly, he and Alice followed.

Something, somehow, had shifted.

**A/N: Ok, a slightly shaky attempt at a little Alice and Jasper. I promise I'll bring Edward, Carlisle and Esme in next chapter. Hope you're still liking it, thanks for all your lovely reviews, you have no idea how much I appreciate them :D**

**Oh, and apologies for the Spanish - I did take it at GCSE but I've forgotten it all, so it was the result of a translator. It's not really relevant to the story. ;)**


	6. Chapter 6

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter Six**

"So… you, er, feeling better now?" Emmett asked awkwardly, as they walked back through the forest. Rosalie smiled slightly at his awkwardness now, now Jasper and the other girl were here, the girl she met in the Newton store at the weekend, the girl she was assuming was his sister.

"Thanks." She replied.

"If you uh… ever… uh… wanna talk about it, you know where I am?"

Was this strange, handsome, huge boy she only met this morning offering her his comfort? In a way, it was _nice._

"Thanks." She repeated, and then, "Can we start over? My name's Rosalie Hale."

He laughed, and held out a hand for her to shake, "Emmett Cullen."

_His hand in hers again…_

"Sorry, about today." She whispered, "I don't even know you, and I-"

He shook his head, "Starting over, remember?"

She gave him a shy smile.

"Anyway, I was thinking…" Emmett said, turning round to include Jasper and Alice, "That Jasper and Rosalie should come round for dinner at ours tonight. Mom makes a mean spaghetti carbonara."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Emmett, have you even checked whether Mom and Dad have the late shift?"

Emmett shrugged. "If they can't, I'm sure Edward can rustle something up, right?"

"Edward?" Rosalie enquired.

"My other brother." Alice supplied. "Tall, dark, handsome, infuriating…"

"Just like me, only not quite as good." Emmett joked, and Alice rolled her eyes at Rosalie again. Jasper looked nervously at his sister, as if any minute she was going to crumble again. But on observation, she seemed increasingly contented, walking alongside this Cullen boy.

"Rose?" he questioned. She nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"Sure, then." He said, "We'd love to come over for dinner… But for now, I'm getting Rose home."

"Jasper-"

"Don't argue with me, not now. You're not fit to go back in there, not today. You need to go home, rest, watch a couple of old movies-"

Suddenly, she turned, eyes fiery, turning almost violet, shouting, "Hiding from the world isn't solving anything! I'm not ever going to get past… this… if I'm cowering away from every other human being in the world! I'm going back to school!"

Jasper looked shocked, but somehow, was strangely comforted. That was the first time Rosalie had shouted since _it _happened. She'd been passive, non-resistant, hardly noticing anything anyone said, just complying. Finally, she was arguing back, and he couldn't help wondering whether it had something to do with the guy stood beside her, looking at her with worry etched into his face.

Alice noticed that, too. Emmett looked almost in physical pain at Rosalie's outburst. She tried to meet his gaze, but he was focused on the taller blonde. Emmett reached out and touched the girl's shoulder, lightly. "We can't go back into English Literature now, it would just cause a scene and we'd get late marks." He tried to force a grin. "We could amble back slowly and see how you feel after break."

Her eyes flashed. "You know _nothing _about what I feel!" she snapped, stepping back so he wasn't touching her anymore. Then she swallowed, an instant wave of guilt washing over her at trying to hurt this guy, who was only trying to help. And she wasn't exactly throwing him a line, either. Emmett, on the other hand, was not fazed.

"I know." He said. "I'm aware of that. Sorry."

She looked at him. "Sorry." She said, "I just… I didn't mean to screw up already, like this. Not on the first day."

He didn't touch her, just looked into her eyes. "It's ok." He said softly, so Alice and Jasper had to strain to hear it. But both of them did, and they exchanged a glance. Things were changing.

Rosalie turned to Jasper. "I… I think I'll do what Emmett says, Jazz. See how I feel after break. I just… don't wanna go home…"

Jasper smiled, wishing, for the thousandth time in the past six months that he could take at least some of Rosalie's pain for himself. "I was just worried about you, Rose. But if you wanna stay-"

"I do."

"Ok then."

The four of them walked back to Forks High under the guise of incessant, useless chatter.

* * *

"Edward, this is Jasper and Rosalie Hale." Alice introduced the pair of them as they sat down at the table with them, "The new students."

Jasper gave Edward a quick smile, and Rosalie nodded. They sat between Alice and Emmett, setting their trays down on the canteen table. Edward looked up from his book for a moment, smiled briefly, a smile that didn't reach his eyes, and then looked back down.  
"Apologies for Edward." Alice said, smiling at Rosalie, eyes lingering on Jasper. "He's not good with introductions."

Emmett snorted. "You reckon? Remember that time he told that girl that she had food on her face – and all she did was ask if he knew the way to Physics?"

Alice bit back a laugh, and Rosalie was surprised to find herself following.

"Anyway, this is Edward. Our brother."

Edward scowled down into his book, and Emmett laughed again.

"So… have you always lived in New York?" Alice asked brightly, flicking her eyes between the Hale twins, smiling her bouncy grin.

"Since we were five…" Jasper answered, and Emmett watched, puzzled, as Rosalie's face seemed to close over again, her eyes averted from the conversation, down at her perfectly manicured nails in her lap. "Our father's a journalist, our mother doesn't really do anything much… some aromatherapy sometimes, but other than that…"

The corners of Rosalie's mouth turned up, almost sarcastically, but she made no move to say anything.

"So he moved to New York, anyway, to get right in the middle of things. Writes for the New York Times. You said your father was a doctor?"

A flicker of recognition in his sister's eyes.

"Surgeon, yeah. Chief of Surgery at Forks General." It was the first real thing Edward had said. "And Mom's a doctor too – gynaecologist – and Chief of Staff."

"Oh crap, I almost forgot! I need to ring Mom, see if she's up for making her famous carbonara tonight?" Emmett burst out.

"What's that in aid of?" Edward asked.

"Rose and Jasper are coming over for dinner. You don't mind me calling you Rose, do you?"

Normally, because that was the sort of girl she was, Rosalie would have said yes, thinking it presumptuous to have known a person approximately an hour and to already be thinking up a nickname. But not unlike her brother, she was enchanted by the little dark-haired girl with the friendly brother and then… less than friendly brother. So she gave Alice the biggest smile she could muster, and shook her head. "Rose works for me."

Jasper frowned, something Alice didn't fail to pick up on. There was something going on there.

Emmett dialled, and waited. The phone rung eight times before his mother picked up, sounding breathless.

"Hello?"

"Mom, it's me."

"Oh… hi, Emmett…"

"Mom, are you ok? You sound… tired…"

What was that _noise? _"I'm fine, Emm, just… what did you want?"

"I was wondering if you were able to cook your carbonara tonight, Alice and I have invited some friends over…"

_Friends._ Rosalie liked the sound of that. It was loose, non-committal, but reassuring.

"Oh… er… one moment-" there was a muffled noise and then a giggle and Esme's voice saying something that sounded suspiciously like 'Carlisle' before she spoke again.

"Your… uh… your father's got to go in to do a surgery later, he's home… now, but I'll… I'll be home…"

Another giggle. Slowly, Emmett turned pale.

"I'll let you go now, Mom."

"Sure, honey."

The dialling tone was welcome. Alice frowned at her brother's suddenly near-green complexion.

"What is it?"

Emmett swallowed, looking between Edward and Alice, and then deciding they needed to share this experience with him.

"I think I just interrupted Mom and Dad… Dad and Mom… erm…"

Alice raised her eyebrows. Edward grimaced into his book.

Rosalie, on the other hand, burst out laughing.

Subtly, change had begun.

**A/N: Couldn't resist that little bit of Carlisle/Esme there :P, I'm a sucker for that, as well. Apart from Rosalie's outburst, this chapter was intended to be a little more light-hearted. I also want you to see Rosalie's little shouting fit the way Jasper does - a step forward, and proof that something's changing her… not as any kind of insult to Emmett. Because Emmett = LOVE :D:D:D**

**Please review, anyway. Your reviews have been so lovely. Thanks.**


	7. Chapter 7

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter Seven**

"Mom, we're home!" Alice called, eliciting a small giggle as she dumped her school bag gracefully over one of the kitchen chairs. Emmett tensed, and Edward snorted with laughter. They'd spent most of the way home, the younger two, taunting their brother in the Jeep, about interrupting Carlisle and Esme's 'private time'. Esme came running down the stairs, hardly made up but still managing to look beautiful, and at least ten years younger than her age of 39.

"Who are these kids you're having over, then?" she asked brightly, avoiding her eldest son's gaze like the plague. Edward chuckled to himself and dashed up to his room. Alice gave Emmett a bright, infuriating smile.

"Rosalie and Jasper Hale, Mom. They're twins, they're new in town – from New York."

Esme's eyes showed a flicker of something – recognition? Emmett didn't fail to notice it was similar to the look in Rosalie's eyes earlier that day.

"You know them?" he asked. Esme shrugged.

"No. I guess I just heard the name somewhere before."

She wasn't lying. Aside from the fact that she was the most useless liar on the planet, Esme Cullen, on principle, apart from the generic 'Santa _is _real, sweetie' and 'I'm sure the Tooth Fairy will come tomorrow night', did not lie to her children. But something was bizarrely familiar about the name Rosalie Hale, and part of her sensed it wasn't something she could share. But she smiled brightly.

"That's nice. They in your class, Alice, love?"

Her daughter shook her head. "Emmett's. They're both seniors. But I met Jasper in Senior Spanish. We… uh… Emmett was… uh…"

"Rosalie was a bit homesick, that's all. I was looking out for her." Emmett said strongly, and Esme realised something – Emmett had inherited her useless lying. But she didn't question him, because the look in his eyes told her she was getting nothing else from him today.

Alice helped herself to a packet of potato chips from the cupboard and then bounded on upstairs, calling down, "They're coming at five."

Emmett pulled a can of soda from the refrigerator and awkwardly sat on one of the kitchen stools, trying to avoid his mother's gaze.

"Emm, about earlier-"

He held his hands up, not sure whether to laugh or cry. "Whoah, Mom. It's something that never should and never will be discussed, ok? I don't think my stomach can take it?"

"Your stomach can take anything, Emmett Cullen, but if you don't want to talk about it, we don't have to."

_Thank God, _was echoing around in her head.

"If you have any questions you'd like to ask your father or I-"

Emmett was off his stool in an instant. "Mom! I'm eighteen! Do. Not. Give. Me. The Talk."

Esme couldn't help it, she smiled at her son. He scowled back.

"I… uh… I'd better get upstairs and get some work done before… uh… Rosalie and Jasper get here…"

"Right…" Esme said, looking at the floor, and stared fondly after her eldest as he bounded up the stairs, two at a time.

* * *

Alice was the first to the door, dressed in a little blue dress, smiling wider than her mother had seen her in a long time.

"Hey." She said, and Rosalie and Jasper smiled back. Edward, who was walking past the door, caught a glimpse of the vehicle they had arrived in: a bright red BMW M3 convertible, and his jaw dropped open.

"Nice ride." He muttered, and Jasper shrugged.

"It's Rose's."

Rosalie simply raised her eyebrows at the Cullen boy she was struggling to like, and Alice gave Edward a _look._

"No, seriously, Rosalie. Wow."

By this time Emmett was down the stairs, dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and jeans, smiling. Rosalie's breath hitched for a moment at the amount of bicep on show.

"Jeez, Emm, check out her car!" Edward said, and Emmett shrugged.

"Not really a car person, myself."

Rosalie's eyebrows went up, but she said nothing.

"Come in, anyway," Emmett said, "No need to stand on the doorstep."

"Uh.. to stare at the car." Edward said jokingly, eyes sparkling, and for the first time the twins could see how this sullen, brooding guy was related to the two smiley, bouncy personalities they'd already befriended. Jasper chuckled a little, almost nervously, and kept his hand on her arm as they walked through the doors.

The Cullens' house was magnificent. Bright, walled framed in huge floor length windows, marble floors, polished pine beams… simplistic white walls – it made an instant impression. As did the dress of the three Cullen children, while although still casual, their clothes seemed to accentuate their striking good looks especially… but then maybe it was the light. Attractiveness – that was something Rosalie could relate to. She followed Alice, Edward and Emmett into the bright, open kitchen, and the woman standing behind the counter, chopping onion, smiled at her.

"Hi, I'm Esme Cullen." She said, stepping around the counter. She was dressed simply, a smart black skirt and a purple shirt, a black apron tied loosely around her waist, but her air seemed to be that of someone at a ball, almost, done up to the nines in the finest of dresses, the most pristine of makeup, the highest of heels – for a moment Rosalie Hale was transfixed by someone else's beauty, which made a change. Esme Cullen was stunning.

"Rosalie." She said, finding the woman's warming smile as charming as her three children.

"Jasper." Her brother repeated, and from the slightly breathy tone of his voice Rosalie knew he was thinking the same as she was.

"It's a pleasure to meet you both." Esme smiled, and Rosalie found herself instantly liking the woman. Another observation she had made since her life crumbled around her ears was that there are some people who are genuine – and some people who aren't, and it became easier and easier to just tell by looking them in the eyes when they spoke. She didn't think she'd ever met anyone she was as sure was genuine as Emmett's mother. She felt her smile widened involuntarily.

Esme turned to her children. "The spaghetti will be ready in about ten minutes, kids. Make yourself at home."

For a moment, the five of them stood there, unsure what to do. Rosalie was darting unsure glances at Emmett, Jasper was looking straight at Alice. Edward seemed to take the hint.

"I'll see you then, guys. I gotta call someone."

He dashed off up the stairs. The other four wandered into the living room, complete with chocolate leather sofas, Carlisle's pride and joy, the flat screen, and an elegant ebony coffee table.

"He's gotta call _someone?_" Emmett raised his eyebrows at his sister. She nodded, conspiratorially.

"He met a girl." She smiled. "Another new girl, in homeroom. He was gonna call her to help with the Biology project they're doing together."

Emmett's eyebrows went further. "A…girl? Edward?"

Alice smiled. "Uh huh. She's sweet. Her name's Bella. Charlie Swan's girl. She moved in this summer, to live with her dad."

Emmett nodded slowly. "Wow, we really did get our hooks into the new kids, didn't we?"

Jasper smiled. Rosalie was looking to the trophy cupboard on the far wall, smiling slightly to herself.

"These yours?" she asked Emmett, smiling. He hadn't prepared himself for quite how beautiful she looked when she was smiling, when it was clearly smiling just for him. His words seemed to choke in his throat for a moment as he stared at her. Her eyes… almost violet eyes… God, almighty, she was going to be the death of him…

"The five on the middle shelf are Emmett's." Alice cut in, "That one on the bottom is Edward's – from a music festival he played the piano in when we were kids, and the little statues on the top are Dad's old golf trophies."

Rosalie smiled.

"Three of them are football, two, tennis." Emmett said slowly, worried his face was turning red with her gaze on him like that.

_Godsakes, Emmett. When did you become some hormonal kid?_

"Jasper plays tennis." Rosalie offered, turning to face her brother. Their eye contact disappeared. Spell broken. He turned to Jasper, trying to keep the emotion – what emotion was it really? He couldn't put his finger on it… an overwhelming urge to protect her from anything that could ever hurt her ever again? Something along those lines – and grinned.

"Well?"

"Fairly."

"How fast's your serve?"

"103 mph." Jasper deadpanned.

"Aah, sorry, man, 108!!" Emmett laughed.

The blond boy grinned back, a challenge. Alice rolled her eyes at Rosalie, who found herself feeling an overwhelming happiness at the look on her brother's face, opposite this guy she hardly knew, yet knew so well. She hadn't seen Jasper look that happy in a long time. These past six months, every time Jasper was with her, she could see him weighing up everything he was about to say to her before he said it, trying his best to let nothing slip – even censoring his own happiness, which was, admittedly, limited, for the sake of her. She swallowed. Quite possibly, the Cullens were the best thing that could have happened to them in Forks.

"Grubs up!" Esme yelled from the kitchen.

"This'll be good." Emmett flashed her a smile, and she felt something she'd almost forgotten how to feel – the rush of blood in her cheeks, a blush.

They walked into the kitchen.

**A/N: Hope you liked it! I just couldn't resist Esme trying, for however brief a moment, to give Emmett The Talk, it was just too funny. Oh, and it was time to bring in Bella, I thought. I was feeling very disloyal portraying poor Edward like some total loner :P I just want to thank all the lovely reviewers, too, special thanks to Kimbercat98, HighOnLife, PokieDots, D R O W N-I N-S E Q U I N S and FlamingRedFox, for keeping with me, and reviewing more than once!!!! I love you guys, hope you'll stick with me for the whole journey – and I have a feeling this is gonna be a long one – I'm on chapter seven and it's their first day of knowing each other ;)**

**Good times are ahead, regardless of the exams I have this week and next week. They're only important to my A-levels, anyway, nowhere near as important as Rose&Emmett :D:D:D**

**Review!!**

**xx **


	8. Chapter 8

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter Eight**

"Spaghetti Carbonara, a la Esme." Emmett joked as he placed a bowl in front of Rosalie. It smelt, and looked delicious, but Rosalie wasn't good with food. Not anymore. For too long, everything had tasted of bad memories, and then of nothing, that these days eating was a necessity, not an enjoyment. But she smiled politely at Esme anyway, and lifted her fork. Emmett sat down beside, and his arm brushed hers as he did. Even she couldn't deny the electric current that seemed to run between the two of them, cliché or not, and she couldn't help the corners of her mouth turning up a little.

"Edward!" Esme called, "Dinner!"

There was a mumbled sound, and then Edward came bounding down the stairs, taking a place at the opposite head of the table, between Emmett and Jasper.

"Bella Swan, eh?" Emmett said the moment he sat down. Edward looked into his pasta for a moment, and then cleared his throat.

"She's my new lab partner."

Emmett chuckled. "That's what they all say…"

Was Edward blushing? Alice leant over to whisper something in Jasper's ear, and somehow Emmett wasn't astounded at all at how quickly Alice had made it appear that she had known the boy for years.

"It must be serious, Ed, if you're calling her… that's a hell of a commitment, that is, man…"

"Emmett." Esme said warningly, her eyes twinkling. Edward, on the other hand, was glowering.

"No, seriously, bro. Maybe you should think carefully in future before you take such big steps!"

"Be nice!" Rosalie said, and slapped his leg under the table, gently.

The world seemed to stop spinning, another cliché, but an appropriate one. Emmett looked at her slowly, eyes slightly wider than usual, and she physically saw him swallow. She found herself enchanted by the deep, rich brown of his eyes, and for a second everyone else at the table seemed to disappear.

That was when she realised she still had her hand on his leg. She swallowed then, and removed it as discreetly as possible, without tearing her gaze from him. He gave her a small smile, but it was quite unlike any of the grins he had flashed at her. He had… _dimples. _If that couldn't make her grin, nothing could.

Alice and Jasper were looking at each other too, Edward was tucking into his pasta, still ricocheting from the embarrassment of his brother's friendly mocking. Esme looked at her eldest son and the blonde girl, and was almost overwhelmed by the looks they were giving each other. She was a firm believer in love at first sight, she'd experienced it herself when she was just twenty years old, and stuck in a loveless marriage, and she'd set eyes on Carlisle Cullen, but that was a story for another time. As she looked between Alice and Jasper and Emmett and Rosalie she felt a wave of regret, almost. She couldn't suddenly see something she had never been able to comprehend before – losing her children to other people, having them love someone else more than they loved her. She'd accepted her kids were growing up – Emmett, at eighteen, was an adult now – but she'd never really considered the implications of that before. That one day they would leave this house and her and Carlisle for good, and become someone else's family.

* * *

"That was delicious, Mom." Alice said, scraping the last ounce of sauce from her bowl. "As good as usual."

Esme gave her a grateful look, and turned to the others. "Dessert, anyone?"

Dessert was Alice's creation, a giant pavlova, raspberries and strawberries arranged on top in some intricate pattern of circles. Esme served them all a large slice and they began to tuck in, comfortable in each other's company.

"So… Alice said you were seniors, Rosalie, Jasper. You know where you're going to study next year?"

Jasper shot Rosalie a quick glance, but her smile seemed not to have changed.

"I'm thinking of studying Law." He said quickly, "Or maybe Politics. I'm going to apply to Harvard, I think, but-"

"Emmett's thinking of Harvard, too, aren't you?" Edward said. Emmett shrugged, as if it didn't matter.

"Chemistry." Alice added proudly, and Emmett gave her a small, personal look. It was times like that when he really loved his sister, when she talked about him and the pride just shone out in her beautiful little voice.

"What about you, Rosalie?" Esme asked politely. Jasper seemed to tense, something Alice didn't miss, but decided not to comment on. But Rosalie's smile remained fixed, her mind running in overdrive.

_You haven't had this much fun in… since then. Don't screw it up now, just play along._

"I'm not really sure what I want to do yet, Mrs Cullen." She said sweetly, "I guess I'd like to go to college, but-"

"Oh, call me Esme, please. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was your age, either, Rosalie. Don't worry about it. I spent two years in Language School before I realised I wanted to be a doctor."

_Before I met Carlisle. _But again, a story for another day.

Emmett helped himself to a second slice of Alice's pudding, taking a large bite. Rosalie smiled at him.

"What?" he asked.

"You've got… uh…" she wiped the little smudge of cream at the side of his mouth off with her finger, the contact buzzing again. _Dimples, again._

Emmett tried to calm his heart rate. It was so loud; the rest of the room could probably hear it. What the hell was this girl, this infuriatingly beautiful, enchanting, _broken _girl, doing to him? He shuddered slightly, but not enough for anyone else to notice. _She was smiling, _that was all that mattered right now. This morning he'd thought she'd probably never smile again, but there she was, smiling back at him with almost a hint of _flirtation _in her eyes. Those eyes…

* * *

Alice had taken Jasper to show him her painting room, where she would shut herself away, play bizarre and wonderful music and paint things, anything, her family, herself, the view outside the window, her dreams… anything. It was the only place in the house no one else went in, the single room that belonged solely to her, because even her bedroom was often the site of the three of them curled up on her giant fluffy beanbag and watching old movies, which Emmett and Edward complained about until they were blue in the face, but they loved it really.

So, naturally, when Alice had offered to show Jasper, her brothers had made instant eye contact, and not moved as their little sister and the blond boy got up from the table and left the room. Minutes later, after the shock had worn off, Edward had dashed back upstairs to get back 'on with his biology project'. Biology project Emmett's ass, but no one argued. Rosalie had offered to help Esme with the clearing up, and Emmett had followed close behind. Esme decided she would let Emmett keep this girl if she got him doing dishes, and made a poor excuse about needing to make an important work phone call quickly, before leaving Emmett and Rosalie in the kitchen, with the soapy washing up water and a stack of dirty plates, alone.

They washed and dried together, in companionable silence, the only sound of Emmett humming some unrecognisable little tune he assumed he'd picked up from his brother's mildly irritating but actually genuinely brilliant piano playing. It was as she passed Emmett one of the glasses, and their hands touched, that she realised she'd actually enjoyed the meal, and that was a first in a long time.

"Dinner was lovely. Your Mom really does make a mean spaghetti carbonara." She smiled.

He grinned, cocking his head on one side. "Would I lie about something as serious as food?" he laughed, and she laughed too, and it was a pretty, gentle sound.

"No, it's a long time since Jazz or I have had a really nice meal." She said, "He usually has to put up with whatever I can throw together."

Emmett frowned, but said nothing. He had no idea whether what she had been through had anything to do with her parents, and he didn't want to question. In the end, she answered for him.

"They didn't move down here with us, see. Dad had to stay for work and they both decided we were old enough – they kinda… don't know how to handle me… anymore, anyway. So they rented us out a little flat in town. It's not bad, though, actually I quite like the whole thing-"

Emmett grinned. "Freedom, huh?"

"Something like that." _Her eyes sparkle when she smiles like that._

"Rose?"

"Uh huh?" _Dammit, that nickname shouldn't sound so good when he says it. What are you thinking, Rose?_

"I… uh… I know I like, erm, only met you today but uh…"

_Spit it out, _he thought. He had never been one to mince words, and now he couldn't seem to say anything straight. He cleared his throat.

"I wondered if you wanted to do something at the weekend. Just as friends, I mean…There's a really nice meadow the other side of the forest, and we could take a picnic, before it gets too cold and wet this year…"

"On our own?"

_Way too quick, Emmett, now she's gonna bolt._

"Well, if you'd rather, we could invite the others-"

She shook her head, smiling shyly. "No, just us is good." She looked down at her feet, and then sighed.

"What's wrong?"

She looked up again, and her eyes were slightly sparkling. "You saw me at my absolute worst this morning, you saw what a train wreck I am, and you don't even care?"

He shrugged. "I like you."

_Simple, easy, perfect._

She smiled again. "I like you too. The weekend sounds good."

**A/N: I can't post tomorrow, so think of this as compensation ;) Omigod, they're going on a date!!!!!!!! Hehe. Hope it's not moving too fast for y'all, I'm not gonna get them into anything hot and heavy already, I'm trying to move it along at a realistic pace. Hope you liked it, review please.**


	9. Chapter 9

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter Nine**

The week passed relatively easily for all of them, and that was a surprise. Rosalie and Jasper had gone home late from the Cullens' that night, and hardly said a word to each other, just retiring to their separate rooms, slight smiles on both their faces. The next morning, and the next, and the next, when Rosalie woke up, for a moment the creeping dread, the horror, the fear, filled her again, as they had every time she drifted out of sleep for the last six months. She got up slowly, dragging as she always did, heavy-hearted and with stinging eyes, and then she looked at the clothes strewn over the back of her chair, her jeans and blue shirt, and a coat Emmett had forced her to borrow from Esme to drive home in, insisting it was "too cold".

Emmett. The thought pushed the dread and the horror and the fear a little further down, so they were no longer drying her mouth, but barely burning the back of her throat. They had in no means disappeared, she wondered if that would ever be possible, but something….something seemed to be fighting them down. She even let a little smile touch her lips as she darted into the bathroom, knocking on Jasper's door as she did to wake him up.

She had Emmett in her English Literature and American History classes, and Jasper in French and Math. The others were a lot harder, walking into rooms full of unknown people, all eyes turning to watch her, to judge her beauty before they even knew her. She quickly found out the best way to deal with most of the guys, although mainly the jocks that sat, swinging on the back two legs of chairs at the back of the classroom, was to avoid their gaze completely. That way, she could never see the leers, the lust that jumped into their eyes, and she would never have to remember…

The first time she went back into English Lit, on Thursday, she was hovering by some lockers outside the classroom, trying to brace herself to walk into the class that had witnessed the beginnings of her breakdown. A teacher that wouldn't understand her rudeness. That guy…

"You thinking of going in anytime soon, Rosalie, or do you have an aversion to literature in general?"

_Emmett. _How was it that just at the point where she crumbling to nothing someone had come into her life that could make her smile, even when she was teetering on the edge?

"Just psyching myself up." She smiled. "It's… I'll be all right… you go on in…"

He shook his head. "I'll wait." He said simply, standing there with her, looking down at his hands, almost awkward, but decisive all at the same time. She felt a little warmer inside. That was it, again, not caring about what she actually asked him to do, but doing what he thought was best for her. He was… incomprehensible, and unlike anyone else.

"I'm ready." She whispered.

He grinned at her, dimples making her heart thud. She walked through the door slowly; Emmett so close behind her she could feel his body heat, towering over her, eyes scanning the room for anyone who might cause her even the slightest ounce of pain.

No one really noticed as she walked through the door. A few people glanced her up and down, the jock from the back row gave her a glare – she considered she had probably bruised his oversized ego inadvertently – and now, with Emmett right _there _and slightly more sense running through her head, she could rationalise the situation. She wasn't in any danger in a high school classroom. No one was going to hurt her there. There was an empty two person desk at the back, the other side from where she had sat before, triggering everything. "That one." Emmett muttered in her ear, gesturing to it, and she felt his breath graze her neck. She couldn't remember the last time her senses had been this heightened, she'd become so used to everything being so numb. But when he was around… she felt everything, even his eyes on her.

She walked through the rows of students, watched a few whisper something to their companions, and others stare boredly ahead. She wasn't the new news anymore. She didn't matter anymore to them than the girl sat by the window with her head in a book. Emmett noticed that people hardly seemed to stare after her as they had before, too. He considered for a moment and realised that possibly, in a school this size, most people had realised the Hale twins were sitting at lunch with the Cullens, and they weren't considered exactly friendly. People were judging the Hales already on the fact they were sitting with the famously 'snooty, too-rich-for-their-own-good' Cullens. He wished for a second that he could care that he was stunting Rosalie and Jasper's popularity growth in that way, but he couldn't.

She slid into the seat in the back corner, and Emmett slid beside her. The desks were small, probably better designed for the freshmen that the seniors, and for someone with a torso and arms the size of Emmett's, they hardly gave the other person any private space. But somehow, sitting at the back of the room, however she arranged herself with her arm brushing his; that was comforting. He'd already told their teacher on the first day, when he'd gone to collect her bag, that she was recovering from a nasty bout of food poisoning and had had to run out the classroom to be sick, so Mrs Bartlett, the nervous-looking Shakespeare-worshipping little woman with the thick glasses hardly noticed anything had been amiss. Rosalie found her heart rate slowing at the thought of those prying eyes, those leering faces, and settled into her space beside this guy she suddenly felt as if she'd known a long, long time.

* * *

On Thursday lunchtime, Edward brought Bella Swan over to their canteen table. She was pretty enough, but _normal _pretty, not Rosalie's beautiful or Alice's striking. She looked nervously between them all before sliding into a seat between Edward and Alice, who had instantly befriended the girl, as she was wont to do with anyone who struck her fancy, in one of their classes. Alice and Jasper, it seemed, had become close, as if they had skipped the "new acquaintances" stage entirely. They only had Senior Spanish together, but a few free periods they spent sitting on the wall of the parking lot together, heads close, talking – about what, neither Emmett or Rosalie had any idea, but that didn't seem to matter at this point – and although they mingled with the rest of the group at lunchtime, sometimes their eyes would lock together and they would make everyone else at the table feel slightly awkward with their totally unashamed... well, _gazing._

Bella tucked nervously into her Caesar salad, but Emmett's friendly joking nature, along with the way Edward seemed to hover close to her, as if she was breakable, and Alice's delighting chatter; they seemed to soften her walls and by the end of lunch hour she was smiling and laughing with them. Rosalie hadn't really had any chance to talk properly to the girl, but she seemed nice enough, the word Alice had used, "sweet", was apt. And when she was around, the usually slightly morose and sombre Edward cheered up considerably.

So Rosalie and Emmett were often forced into each other's company, not that either of them minded. Rosalie found herself growing increasingly excited and increasingly nervous about their trip at the weekend, and Emmett, in some way, could almost sense it. Every now and again he would catch her on her own, or speak in an undertone.

"Are you sure you're ok for this weekend? It's ok if you're not, I mean, we can always wait, do it another time…"

By about the sixth time of him asking that, or something to that effect, on Friday, just before they were all about to get into their respective cars and drive home – Edward dropping Bella off in his Volvo, because her old, temperamental truck was being fixed – she stopped him, grabbing his arm, looking straight into his eyes.

"Emmett."

"Uh huh?"

She took a deep breath. _Baby steps, Rose. _She felt suddenly like everything, the past five days of high school in Forks, five days of the Cullens, five days of _him, _were racing ahead of her, and it required her full concentration to keep up…

"I **want **to go out with you tomorrow, ok? I'm fine with it – if I wasn't, I would say, all right?"

He smiled at her. "Sorry. I just…" _Don't want to lose you before I've even found you… _"…never mind."

She narrowed her eyes slightly but decided it wasn't time to question him. Without even noticing her hand was still on his arm, she continued to smile at him. For a girl who had started on Monday feeling every inch of physical contact like a burn, and now being… if it was possible… happier when she _was _touching him, she had come a long way.

"What time shall I be ready for you to pick me up?"

He shrugged. "If you wanted, you could drive round in the morning, we could have breakfast at mine, and then go walking… and then you'd have your car there to drive home in… in the evening, or whenever. In the afternoon, if you wanna leave by then."

_He was nervous, _occurred to her suddenly, her eyes twinkling a little, beautifully, but then, as always, with Rosalie, that was a given.

"Ok." She smiled, "I'm an early bird, though."

Dimples, showing. "I'll have breakfast served at… half nine?"

She nodded, "Half nine it is."

He smiled at her, almost stupidly, for a moment, and then felt a blush creeping up his neck, neither of them knowing what to say next, stupid grins on their faces.

"I…uh… I've gotta, well, go, now…" she mumbled, lifting her hand slowly away from his arm, loathe to break contact.

"Me too." He said quickly. "See you tomorrow morning."

"See you." She said quietly, and on a complete whim, stood on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly, no more than a tiny peck really, on the cheek. She wasn't quite tall enough, however, and it hit just above his jaw. He smiled.

"Bye, Rosalie."

"Bye, Emmett."

As she walked to her car, and an incredulous Jasper, wondering who she was and what she had done with Rosalie Hale, she realised something. She'd been bracing herself, in the second before she kissed him, to smell like _him, _to smell like sweat and grease and _wrong. _But he had smelt quite different.

Like the aftershave Alice had bought him last Christmas, mint, and _right._

**A/N: I couldn't even hold off from updating for one day, guys, but I guess that's good for you lot! Thanks again to all my lovely reviewers, you seem as in love with this story as I am, which warms the cockles of my heart :P Hope, as usual, it's not fast, to fluffy, or to angsty or whatever is your particular pet hate!! Next chapter, which I will write tomorrow, regardless of the fact I have an exam on Friday, is The Date!!!!!!**

**Yippee!**

**Review.**

**x**


	10. Chapter 10

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter Ten**

The doorbell rang. Emmett's eyes flickered to the clock. Twenty five past nine. Rosalie was early.

Esme chuckled lightly at him as he ran full pelt down the stairs and answered the doorbell. She was standing there, looking as good as ever, hair loosely tied into a ponytail, and wearing the appropriate clothing – just joggers and a woollen jumper (because although it was sunny, it was beginning to get chilly in Forks) – and they complimented her curves perfectly. She gave him a shy smile.

"You made it." He grinned, and considered to himself that that was stupid thing people said, because clearly, when someone was in front of you, they had "made it".

_Shut up. Jeez._

"Yeah. Jasper's put his number on speed dial one on my phone though, and practically taken my temperature and given me a full once-over, but he's decided I'm all fit to go." She smiled at him, trying to laugh it off, but when Jasper had looked her right in the eyes and simply asked her if she was ok with this, she'd smiled and been grateful for her brother.

Emmett smiled. "How does a bacon sandwich sound to you?"

Food was improving, she had found, since moving to Forks, since Esme's carbonara on that fateful first day. "Sounds great."

They walked through to the kitchen, where Edward was just serving up the sandwiches onto plates. Esme sat at the table, delicate frameless glasses sat on the end of her nose, reading a medical journal. She looked up and smiled warmly when Rosalie walked in. Emmett pulled out her chair, smiling at her.

"Hiya, Rose." Alice came skipping down the stairs. "I'll see you guys later – I'm taking Bella shopping."

Edward snorted. "Alice, Bella hates shopping."

His little sister rounded on him. "Edward, Bella has a terrible wardrobe. I need to do something about that."

Rosalie and Emmett looked at each other smiling, as Alice skipped out of the door, leaving Edward seething.

"Must she _always _interfere?"

Esme looked up from the journal. "Edward, she's being nice. She's trying to make friends."

"She's practically dragging Bella to Port Angeles when she'd probably much rather-"

Emmett leant over and whispered in Rosalie's ear: "The quicker you eat that, the quicker we can get out of this madhouse."

She smiled slightly, forcing herself into stillness as his breath on her neck her shiver slightly. She wolfed down the last few mouthfuls of her sandwich, nervous, excited… terrified.

"We're gonna get going, Mom." Emmett smiled, putting his and Rosalie's bowls into the washing bowl. "We'll probably get back sometime in the afternoon."

Esme nodded. "Have fun." She said, without even looking up. Edward gave the dirty plates a disdainful look but on a sharp look from his brother said nothing.

"Maybe I'll give your brother a call, Rosalie. You said he played tennis – they've got courts down at the club – maybe we could hit a few balls around?"

She thought about it for a second, feeling warm. "Jasper would like that."

She turned to Emmett. "I'm ready."

* * *

Emmett walked slightly ahead of her, up the steep hill, through the forest, glancing back every few seconds to grin at her, check she was keeping up. When they finally got onto more level turf, he walked beside her, close, so their shoulders bumped every few minutes.

"It's beautiful up here." She murmured, as if not wanting to break the peaceful, natural silence. "There was nothing like this in New York City."

He laughed lightly, subconsciously agreeing to keep to the innate quiet. He was carrying a bulky forest-green backpack, holding the entire picnic, and she was carrying a rolled up tartan blanket under one arm. A few strands of her blonde hair had escaped from her ponytail and were blowing in the wind, whipping across her face, sticking to the clear vanilla lip balm on her lips.

"It's one of the only good things about Forks." He said, laughing, but with a sudden undertone of bitterness that was alien to her.

"You don't like it here?"

He sighed. "It's not that I don't like it. I've grown up here; I have tonnes of childhood memories that are wonderful about this place. I just – there's gotta be something more, y'know? Some big city, some high-rise apartment, some freedom that's more than walking through the woods…" he trailed off.

_Sometimes more isn't better, _she thought, but kept that to herself.

When she said nothing, he laughed nervously, trying to lighten the mood again. "Not that I don't love walking in the woods." He joked, but he'd shown her the restless side of him now, and that was something he couldn't take back.

"It's not all wonderful, the big city, y'know." She said softly. "It's not… friendly."

Silence, again, this time less peaceful.

Minutes passed, as they walked, occasionally touching arms, both drinking in the landscape and breathing in the cool air, solemn expressions on their faces.

"I don't need to know what it was, but… I'm sorry for whatever happened to you, Rosalie." He breathed, so low she was hardly sure she'd heard him correctly. But his eyes were on her face, not inquisitive, almost… sad. She said nothing for a long time, and Emmett's head was in overdrive.

_You idiot – why did you have to say anything???_

_She was fine, she was doing all right, you've brought it all back up. Bad memories._

_Breathe, Rose. In and out. He's not going to hurt you. He's **sorry. **He's not trying to pretend he understand, he's not trying to help you get better, he's not trying to get revenge… he's sorry. Sorry you're hurting._

"Sorry…" he mumbled, stopping short, where he was. "We can go back, if you want."

She stopped too, turning to face him, tilting her head back just a little so she could look right into his eyes. Her eyes were shining, glistening, but no tears were going to escape her today, ruin this beautiful moment.

"Thank you." She breathed slowly, not letting her eyes leave his, wishing she could even begin to convey how grateful she was that she'd met him, this strange, huge, enchanting boy who didn't seem quite like any other human being she'd ever met. She swallowed. "I… I want to keep going, if that's all right."

Emmett smiled at that, seeming not to want to further this conversation anymore. She didn't even quite understand how he did that, touch her right in the middle of her heart, the place she usually kept so tightly locked, and then flash her his dimples and everything would be light-hearted and the atmosphere would shift, again. But she.. she liked it.

"Well, Miss Hale, we're nearly there." And he continued walking again.

* * *

They came upon the meadow about ten minutes later. Emmett laid out the picnic blanket and unloaded the picnic, little sausage rolls and sandwiches and crisps and chocolate fingers, and she laughed when he pulled out, reverently, two gingerbread men, one iced like a girl, with long yellow hair, one like a boy with dark curly hair.

"What?" he asked, chuckling. "His and hers gingerbread men are Alice's favourite baking project."

She laughed. They ate, and whilst they ate they talked like two normal people on a date, like Rosalie didn't feel like she was close to breaking, like Emmett didn't know he had never felt this way for a person before in his life. She told him about growing up with Jasper in NYC, and he told her about Forks, and all those "childhood memories", sending her into fits of hysterics about the time Edward had taken ballet lessons with Alice, and how he had tried to drive Carlisle's car when he was ten years old, but hadn't been able to understand why he couldn't start it with a hair-grip, which he had figured out how to pick locks with.

She took a bite of her gingerbread woman, and he watched her eyes adoringly, almost, as they lit up and she nodded, laughing, mouth full. She took a few more bites, and he found himself unable to take his eyes off her. She smiled at him.

"What?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

She laughed. He thought if he could just hear her laugh once a day, every day, he would be a happy man. "What is it, Emmett?"

"You.. you've got icing… just there." He gestured to just below her bottom lip, smiling crookedly at her. Her tongue darted out, but missed entirely. He shook his head, laughing, moving closer to point to where it was, then mirroring the position on his face. She tried again, but to no success.

"Emmett… are you playing with me?" she laughed, looking for the first time, really like any eighteen year old girl, and not like some crumbling, broken angel.

"Just… there." He whispered, and leant towards her, unable to deny it any longer, and caught her bottom lip between his.

He felt her sharp inhale of breath, and he wondered if he'd done it now, he'd ruined everything, but then he felt two hands cup either side of his face, and she shifted her weight onto her knees to move closer to him. Tentatively, he put his hands on her waist, light as a feather, and kissed her, properly. She tasted sweet and her tongue laced over his and it was silky and brilliant and gorgeous. He pulled her closer and she could feel his toned, sturdy arms around her and she was pressed against his chest, and she threaded her hands into his curly hair, relaxing slowly into his arms.

Neither of them had room in their minds to even think. Each other was the only thing, filling every last corner.

**A/N: I had to do it, I have Maths and Chemistry exams tomorrow, and I had to cheer myself up somehow!!!!! Hope you liked it, much much more to come, I swear. Nothing's fine and dandy yet, I promise. Hehe! **


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

Rosalie came to her senses when she landed on something soft. Her head had landed on the dewy, fresh grass, just over the edge of the picnic blanket. She could feel various lumps under her back, at least one of which she expected was probably a sausage roll, and her legs were sprawled out amongst the remains of the sandwiches. But it was the cool dew on the grass seeping into her hair that gradually brought her back to reality.

She'd been kissing Emmett, if you could class it as just kissing – drowning in Emmett was probably more accurate, but still…

And for a while, she'd managed to shut all of _it _out. She'd managed to pull a screen down over those memories that were just waiting to replay in her head, and just concentrate on detail – that was how she managed it. Concentrate on the feel of his teeth nibbling her bottom lip, his big hands splayed on the sides of her body, his face so close his eyelashes were touching her skin, the firm, tense muscles of his stomach pressed against her skin through the thin material of both their shirts, the slight scratch of his barely-noticeable stubble against her face…

He held her lightly, as if she would break in his arms any second, and in truth, he was afraid she would. He drank in every inch of her, for want of a better phrase, letting his hands slowly slide over her hips and up her sides, gently, stroking, tentative. He felt her fingers hook into the belt loops of his jeans and her weight shift, leaning slowly back, pulling him down with her. He had to let go of her with one hand to brace himself against the ground – he was terrified of hurting her, and she sunk into the picnic blanket, her head reaching the grass on the very edge. He continued to kiss her, and though his body was screaming out for her and he didn't think he'd ever felt like this in his life and if he let this go he didn't think he'd ever feel like this again, he knew he had to stop, any moment. He knew he had to, because otherwise, he didn't trust himself. He knew he was on the edge of losing control with her, and he would never forgive himself for hurting her, or sending her into the spiral of pain and self-destruction he'd seen her in on the first day they'd met, which in reality was only a week but felt like forever… So he made no move to deepen their sweet kiss, although her hands were sliding up the planes of his chest and he could feel her heart racing, he just savoured the moment for a second longer.

The cold, soaking into her hair put everything into perspective, and it was no longer detail, but the bare facts looming out at her.

_On the ground, powerless._

_A shape looming over her, huge._

_Lips, on hers._

"No!" she shouted, shoving him off of her with considerable force. He stumbled backwards off of her, heart thumping still, looking at her, longing for her to understand that the last thing he wanted was to hurt her.

Rosalie's world was spinning. She had been fine, she had been dealing with it… hell, she had been _enjoying _it, up until she lost concentration, she lost all thought and she saw only those haunting memories… a tanned face twisted into a snarl as he held her down with one hand, not the pale, beautiful face in front of her, expression turned down in pain. She saw pain and fear and violation when truthfully all that there was was hope and light and possibility… the realisation came crashing down on her after barely a minute, but the damage was done. Emmett looked stunned, and she was shaking all over, trying to quell the painful memories that were suddenly overtaking her. Emmett finally regained his awareness of the situation, and the self-disgust building in his eyes hurt Rosalie even through her pain.

"I'm so sorry, Rose, I'm so sorry…" he kept mumbling, wondering whether to reach out to her or not, afraid touching her might spook her. But she was still shaking, and rubbing her arms as if to warm herself up from some imaginary cold – it got to a point where he couldn't take watching her suffering any longer and he reached out a hand and put it gently on her leg, cautious, wondering whether she would bolt. She didn't.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it was stupid…" he muttered, moving closer to her, tucking an arm around her shoulders and rubbing gentle circles on her back. "I was stupid…"

She raised her eyes to his, and he saw the tears in her eyes. "It's not you, it's me." She muttered, and then laughed bitterly at the cliché. He smiled, and squeezed her a little more to him.

"I should have been more careful, Rose, it's too soon, it's stupid, I should have waited for you to be ready… I just-"

She shook her head. "I thought I was ready. I wanted to be ready. I… I know I only just met you, but this… this is new and exciting and I-" she looked him right in the eyes and a small smile, bittersweet but genuine, touched her lips. "I really, really like you, Emmett, and your family, and I really thought that being in a new place would change things, but I just-"

"Shush." He whispered, stroking her hair with one hand, tucking her head into the crook of his neck. "I'm not gonna pretend I understand, Rose, I just… I want to help you…"

She turned her face so it was fully buried in his warm, smooth, chiselled neck and jaw. He smiled slightly as she relaxed into him, but frowned when he felt her tears on his neck.

"I… I was never a nice person, Emmett, I took everything for granted, I was arrogant… I took Jasper for granted, even… I looked down on people… and now I'm a mess; and I… I can't see how I'm ever going to get out of this and… oh!"

she stopped short as he pressed a light kiss to her forehead, gently, softly, testing her response. He felt her smile slightly against his neck, and stroked her hair again.

"I… I hardly know you, but… suddenly I want everything… everything that happened before to go away, because, for once… for the first time, since… since everything, I feel… _alive._"

His hand still rubbing comforting circles on her upper arm, he spoke.

"It's…it's crazy, but it feels like I've known you forever…" he took a deep breath, "And I'm not going anywhere, Rosalie. I'm right here. Shhhhh."

Gradually, her tears subsided.

**A/N: Major apologies for two things – that I didn't get this up yesterday as promised, and that it's kinda short. But this seemed like the appropriate place to stop. See, the angst is coming back!!! And there's gonna be a whole lot more of it because RosalieAngst is one of my favourite things to read/write ever, and because I need Rose and Emmett to grow as people, both of them, before everything can be all light and sunny and all that jazz. So, please review, I hoped you liked it, and more will be up later today or sometime tomorrow.**

**(and my exams went well yesterday :D I only have Biology left now, next Wednesday :S)**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

They walked home then, after packing up the (slightly squashed) picnic and rolling up the blanket. Emmett cautiously took Rosalie's hand in his as they walked, half expecting her to pull away, thinking he really was pushing it too far this time, but she sighed a little and walked a little closer to him, her warm, smooth fingers encased in his own. They hardly spoke at all, but somehow that didn't matter. So much had already been said that a few minutes of silence were what allowed the pair of them to recharge, and just relax.

When they arrived back at the Cullens', Esme and Carlisle were both at work, but Edward and Jasper were playing video games in the front lounge. When her brother saw her mussed hair, slightly tear stained eyes and pale cheeks his breath caught and he started up out of the chair, but then he saw her hand in Emmett's, and the look in her eyes… it was almost _hope. _Coming from Rosalie, who he'd honestly believe would never see the bright side in anything ever again, that look meant the world was spinning again. He didn't move. Edward didn't even look up from the game.

"You're back early." He said in the direction of his brother, smiling as his character destroyed Jasper's. Jasper groaned.

"Yeah… it got cold." Emmett said quietly, and Rosalie gave him a grateful smile. She couldn't really understand why herself, but she didn't need Jasper to know about this little break in her walls, this failure of her strength. She needed him to think things were changing, things were getting better. She needed him to start enjoying life again, not spending twenty four hours a day worrying about her, and for some reason this family seemed to be the way to do that.

"Mom and Dad aren't in til late." Edward said, punching the air as the words 'PLAYER ONE WINS!' came up on the screen and Jasper groaned and dropped his console theatrically. "But Alice – providing she hasn't killed her – is bringing Bella home for dinner. I'll make enough for everyone, if you two wanna stay…" he looked between Rosalie and Jasper.

"Sure." Rosalie said quickly. "Sounds great."

Emmett looked at her. "You wanna go upstairs?" he asked gently, constantly thinking _don't push it, don't push her away. _

She gave him a small smile. "Sure."

Edward raised his eyebrows at Jasper as they headed up the stairs.

"Uh… this is my room." Emmett said, opening the door and letting Rosalie through. She smiled. It was nondescript on the most part, mainly, painted a pale blue with a bed in the corner, a computer at a desk, a television and a wardrobe. The carpet was a dark navy blue, and was littered with comfortable, homelike mess – a few high school folders, two pairs of sneakers, college brochures…

She sat cross-legged on his floor and flipped open the top one, for Yale.

"This where you want to go?" she asked, flicking through the glossy pages, not really looking.

He shrugged, sitting beside her, leaning against his bed. "I dunno, really. I've just.. I've gotta get out, y'know?" When she looked unsure, he elaborated. "I think, in an ideal world, my father would like me to go to medical school get my M.D and then work my way through the ranks at Forks Hospital – and one day take over his job. He'd… he'd never say that, of course, and neither would Mom… but you can just tell."

She didn't say anything, so he continued. "But they've got Edward for that now. He's made it clear for the last three or four years that he wants to be a doctor, he evens works in the summer down at the hospital, so now it's kinda… up to me to do whatever I want. But I've just gotta get out of Forks, y'know? It's just… suffocating."

She cocked her head to one side, considering. "But you'd want to be away from your family? From your Mom and Dad?"

He shrugged. "What, like you, you mean? If I could bring them all away from this place, I wouldn't mind. It's not them that are suffocating me, Rose. I love them all, don't get me wrong. It's this place. It's that everyone knows me, and the little old lady down the road probably babysat for me when I was a kid. I want… some sort of anonymity, some place where I can be anyone, and not worry about what people think."

"I get that." She said softly, "Sometimes people knowing you _is_ hard. It means they judge you, based on who _they _think you are. And anyway, my parents aren't like yours. And I have Jazz."

He nodded. "It's not like I want to sever all ties and run away forever… not at all. I just want to get somewhere in the world without my Dad breathing down my neck – and I know he doesn't mean to; without Mom making sure I'm doing ok every fifteen minutes – I guess it's about independence, really."

She smiled and stretched her legs out, wriggling her toes in her bright purple socks.

There was a brief silence for a moment, and then she spoke. "I… I haven't given much thought to where I'm gonna go to college." She said. "I… I guess I haven't given much thought to anything beyond getting through the next day, for a while."

Emmett tried a reassuring grin. "I could lend you these brochures if you wanted, you could have a look through them…"

How did he do that? Was he the only person in the world who didn't think it necessary to wrap her up in cotton wool?? Granted, he had no idea what he was dealing with, but he wasn't trying to hold her back, and that was refreshing. He was trying to help her move forward. She didn't break his gaze.

"That sounds great."

* * *

Esme arrived through the door as Rose and Jasper were just putting their coats on to leave. Bella had gone upstairs with Edward, there was no sign of her going anywhere anytime soon, but the others had decided to call it a night.

"Oh, thank God I didn't miss you!" Esme gushed as she pulled off her own coat and set down her work bag. "I have a proposition for you two."

Emmett and Alice looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

"Emm told me you two were living by yourselves… I wondered if we could come to some sort of arrangement – it's not healthy for the pair of you to be all alone. I was wondering if you wanted to come over here for meals during the week… just a thought." She gave them her wide, bright, "Esme" smile, and Jasper and Rosalie looked at each other, Rose's stare blank, Jasper's questioning.

"That sounds lovely, Mrs Cullen." Rosalie said, "But we'd have to give you some money, or whatever…"

If Jasper was shocked at his sister's sudden friendliness, he said nothing. After this week, the effect the Cullens, and particularly the eldest, had on her could not surprise him.

"I told you to call me Esme, dear, and if you want to, you can. Do we have a deal, then?"

Rosalie nodded. "Sure. All right, Jazz?"

He nodded, grinning at Alice, who was beaming back.

"Well, we'll see you on Monday, then." Jasper said, heading out the door. Rosalie looked around at the smiling faces.

"See you." She said, and smiled at Esme. Alice launched at her and pulled her into a hug.

"Bye, Rose." She said, and then skipped off upstairs, calling. "Edward! Bella!"

Esme's face registered and she shouted up the stairs, "I hope that door's open, Edward Anthony Cullen!"

Emmett sniggered, and Rosalie looked at him. "I'll see you, then." She muttered, thinking back to what a tumultuous day it had been.

"Bye." He said. She took a step forward, and Esme disappeared discreetly into the kitchen. She placed her hands on either side of him, on his upper arms, and looked up into his face.

He showed her his dimples, and she kissed him square on the mouth, quickly, chastely, sweetly. Then she grinned.

"Bye, Emmett."

"See you, Rose."

**A/N: Well, hope you liked that one!!! I just wanted to say how wonderful you all are as reviewers, the feedback on this is absolutely awesome! I love you guys. Keep up the good work!!!**

**xx**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

Weeks seemed to pass in a blur. Edward-and-Emmett-and-Alice had become Edward-and-Bella and Emmett-and-Rosalie and Alice-and-Jasper, almost overnight, and although it was actually only Edward and Chief Swan's daughter who were openly dating, it became clear in the way they all reacted as a group. Emmett was quite astounded to watch her sister with Jasper – it was something else. Something very _Alice__. _They could sit together in silence for long periods of time, for instance over lunch in the canteen, simply looking at each other, not even touching, and somehow make everyone else feel they were intruding on something highly personal. Edward and Bella weren't exactly into public displays of affection, either, but they would sit holding hands, subtly, and he would kiss her hello and goodbye – Emmett assumed they made up for it when Edward went round Bella's house after school almost every day.

It was astonishing to Alice and Emmett, the change in their brother. Edward had gone from a sullen, moody to the point it was almost childish, "grumpy git" as Emmett put it, to a refined, smooth-talking _romantic. _They discussed the change in the middle Cullen sibling once, and Alice had shaken her head and whispered conspiratorially. "He's in love, Emm. It does things to you." And she'd given him a secretive smile he assumed came from thinking about Jasper. Whilst they weren't exactly dating, they were hardly apart. Jasper was forever at the Cullens' house, not sneaking off upstairs like Edward and Bella but just sitting with Alice watching TV, or doing his homework next to her, or watching her paint.

And then there was Emmett and Rosalie. After that fateful, screwed up yet beautiful day in the meadow, things had definitely changed between them. The change in Rosalie, although unnoticed to the Cullen siblings, astounded Jasper. November rolled around and she hadn't had another serious breakdown – she seemed almost happy. She and Emmett weren't doing anything serious; she'd made it quite clear she wasn't ready for any of that, but they spent a lot of time together, talking about everything – except the one thing, of course. Rosalie kissed him goodbye when she thought no one was watching once in a while – but rarely. Because every time she did her heart started racing and she had to sit down for a full five minutes to make it stop, each time the terror and the nausea raising in her at the thought of her own vulnerability. Sometimes he would hold her hand if he thought she looked unhappy – he was surprised how quickly he learnt to read her. He could now tell her every emotion – how her eyes turned a deeper shade of violet when the memories were resurfacing, the quickened breathing from the panicking, the clenched fists as she tried to force it down, running her hand through her hair when she was nervous or on guard.

They transitioned seamlessly from Emmett looking to Jasper whenever Rosalie looked like she was in trouble to Emmett noticing anything was wrong before even her brother did. A few times she was on the verge of breaking – in big crowds, when a drunken man shouted something vulgar at her across the street in Port Angeles, when they were walking through Seattle in the dark. But now, it was easy to control. Emmett knew what to do. He took her face in between his hands, looked her in the eyes and waited for her breathing to slow, her heart rate to lessen, whispering nothings to her as he waited, ever patient. Jasper would watch, slightly in awe, when this happened. He'd never known how to help Rosalie when she got herself in a state, and he'd known her her whole life, yet here was this stranger, calming her with his eyes, and his hands, and his words. He confided this to Alice, and she smiled sadly at him.

"You can do all you want, but you'll never be enough for her, Jasper. Emmett… Emmett just might be…"

And because she was Alice, that made sense to say.

Sometimes, rarely, in the halls of Forks High, Emmett would sling his arm loosely around her waist, if he feared she was crumbling, if her eyes were darting nervously. It was this, he supposed, that fed the rumours. Forks High School was a hotpot of gossip – it came from being small-town, no one had anything better to do – and by the end of the first month the news that the oldest Cullen boy and "that Hale girl" were an item was on everyone's lips. In truth, they were just, for now, becoming close friends. Rosalie was the only person Emmett had ever confided in about his dreams to leave Forks, although every time he talked to her about it now, and she said she would probably stick around, he thought more and more that maybe his hometown wasn't so bad after all. He helped her trawl through the college brochures and select some she thought sounded good for her – quiet, fairly small and friendly – and reassured her there was no reason why she shouldn't go to college.

They went walking in the woods a lot, talking a little, then walking a silence, then talking again. But they never returned to the meadow that had been the site of their single, disastrous date. To Emmett, the meadow would still be there when she was ready for something else, and to Rose the meadow represented her own weakness. She still wished more than anything that she could just be like Alice, be like Bella, some normal girl who would quiet happily enter into a relationship with someone she cared about with ease and not a care in the world. But she wasn't.

Sometimes at night she would cry herself to sleep over Emmett. How every time she kissed him lightly she would remember how good his tongue felt, laced with hers, every time he put his arms around her she would remember how good his hands felt, sliding up her sides… and she would cry softly, wondering why the hell he was so nice to her, so accepting, when clearly she was just a wreck and would probably be better off in a mental institute. But she never put the question to him, for a small part of her mind feared that he would realise the error of his ways and run – and she didn't want that.

She wanted him. More than she'd ever let on, but she was aching for him, a feeling she hadn't thought she'd ever be able to experience.

She needed him. He calmed her better than anyone, she didn't think he had any idea how he reassured her, how he pulled her out of the darkness and she knew she wasn't alone.

And maybe… just maybe, she was growing to love him.

**A/N: Another shortie, I'm afraid, and a little bit filler-ish, but I needed to move on from the first week, and get a little introspective into their relationship, I thought. I've built into their friendship/relationship a little now, so I can really take off from here with the real trauma/romance/drama!**

**And, on an exciting note, I spent one of my free periods today planning the whole thing out :D. It's underway, to be about 37 chapters in total. That's beastier than anything I've ever written before ;)**

**Stick with me, guys. I adore you lot. ;)**

**xx**


	14. Chapter 14

****

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**A/N: This will be mostly Rosalie&Emmett, for now. But canon ships: Bella&Edward, Carlisle&Esme and Alice&Jasper too.**

Chapter Fourteen

It was a Tuesday, in the beginning of November. Edward and Bella were sat at the end of the canteen table, heads close, talking quietly. Emmett was showing Rosalie how he could spin a fork around his thumb and middle finger, and she was watching in disdain, but with a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Alice and Jasper headed over with their lunch trays – both loaded with spaghetti Bolognese, Alice with a giant smile on her face, Jasper looking apprehensive, but excitement tingeing his blue eyes.

"Jasper got in!" Alice said, sliding into the seat next to Bella and putting her tray on the table. All four of them looked up.

"Got in to what?" Edward asked boredly, going back to playing with Bella's fingers on the table in front of him gently.

"The last minute place on the Argentina trip with Senior Spanish – next week!" she gushed, giving Jasper a smile, the closest Emmett had ever seen his little sister get to seductive. Jasper smiled nervously back, and it was another of those moments when the others all felt as though they were intruding. But then Emmett's eyes travelled to his blonde companion, as they were wont to do most of the time, and seeing the apprehension in her eyes he put his hand over hers. Normally, her eyes would flicker gratefully to his, but they remained focused on her brother, worry building in them.

And sure enough, when Jasper had finished looking at Alice and smiling, the next eyes he met were Rose's. He swallowed hard, and seemed to stare her out, as if judging whether or not what he was doing was acceptable or not.

"It's only for five days." He said, as if justifying it to himself and his twin. "From Saturday to Wednesday next week. I'll be back before you know it."

Rosalie nodded briefly, and then pushed her tray away.

"Sure, Jazz. Whatever." She sighed, "I'm not really feeling very hungry, and I've got some work to catch up on in the library. See you all later."

She stood up to leave, and Emmett started up too, shoving his last few fries into his mouth and chewing quickly. Rosalie gathered her coat, and looked up.

"You want me to come with you?" he asked. No one thought anything of it; Emmett was always with Rosalie nowadays. In fact, it had become bizarre to see one without the other a few paces in front or behind.

Rosalie gritted her teeth. Normally, this wasn't a problem. Normally, she liked Emmett hovering, smiling and showing her those dimples, pestering her when she was working, laughing at inappropriate times when they were watching TV, nudging her lightly when she was trying to have a serious conversation. But, right now, with Jasper's sudden, unexpected revelation, she was feeling suffocated. She had gotten brilliant and controlling her breakdowns recently, but right now she was closer than she had been in weeks. The thought of being unprotected, alone with her secrets, just simply for five days… the only way she could stop the inevitable crumbling was to shut out those who noticed anything wrong.

"No. I'm fine. You don't need to baby-sit me." She said sharply, and headed out of the canteen. Emmett stared after her, eyes sad. Jasper shook his head at him, and he looked back down at his plate, unsure of what to say now. He didn't want to follow her – he didn't want to treat her like she was a child, like she needed him all the time – because that way she'd never stop hurting. That way she'd always be trying to heal.

"You should go." Alice whispered to Jasper, bringing her face close to his so her breath tickled his ear. He tensed a little, something that the little dark-haired girl didn't fail to notice, but he nodded. Sometimes, when he could sit back and over-analyse the whole situation, ponder for hours on how best to help his sister, a few short, blunt, straightforward words from Alice could make that decision in seconds. Something a few months ago he would never have considered, he looked to Emmett for approval. He admitted, although part of him despised the fact, that Emmett had done more to help his twin in the past 9 weeks than he had done in the past 9 months, and he didn't want to do anything right now that might reverse any of that. He was becoming resigned to being second in line as far as Rosalie was concerned, even if she didn't realise it yet.

Emmett, noticing Jasper's look, nodded, almost imperceptibly. Jasper gave Alice a chaste kiss on the cheek and then got up out of his chair, leaving his bag where it was.

"I'll be back." He said, giving them all a smile with hints of bitterness.

* * *

He found Rosalie in the library, as promised. That was an improvement. Not all too long ago she would have run – anywhere, not thinking where she was going, not thinking how anyone else would find her. She was actually working; or at least staring at her textbook furiously, and as Jasper landed in the seat next to her she looked up. Her eyes weren't full, as he had expected, but cold and hard – and that was somehow more worrying. They brought him spinning into memories, backlash from just _days _after – with all her walls constructed around her.

"Rose, I won't go, it's all right…"

She shook her head, looking down at her book, staring at the words THE FUNCTION OF THE CARDIAC CYCLE until her eyes filled with water.

"I want you to go, Jazz. Really. You and Alice-"

He put his hand on her arm. "Hey. Don't make this about me and Alice. We've got all the time in the world to hang out."

Even in her state, she didn't fail to notice the look on his face, the almost dreamy look behind the sympathetic face he used with her. She considered – had she, in her self-pity and self-absorption, missed her brother falling in love? She smiled a little.

"Jasper, things have to change. I can't go on like this forever, y'know. I can't have you… you or Emmett… looking after me all the time. I'm gonna have to learn…"

"But you've got all the time in the world too." He argued, "If you're not ready for me to leave, I won't go. I get that, I understand."

She clenched her fists, frustrated. "Christsakes, Jasper! I shouldn't _have _to need you! I'm eighteen years old, I'm an adult for all intents and purposes… but I'm acting like a five year old who needs someone to tuck her in at night…"

He shook his head quickly. "It's nothing like that, and you know it. What happened to you-"

"Don't." her voice was thick.

He nodded, understanding the words unspoken. It was never mentioned.

Rosalie swallowed. This was what she wanted, to convince herself she was being pathetic. But it wasn't that, it wasn't irrational… it was the empty house, going home to the empty house… when she, inevitably, woke in the night, not having the comfort of knowing Jasper was just down the hall, knowing that any creak of the floorboards was a sound he made and not _them…_

_Not now, Rose. Breathe._

She swallowed, and looked her brother right in the eye. "You're going, Jasper. I just needed a while to pull myself together." She sighed, "I was kinda mean to Emmett, huh? He was just trying to help…"

He nodded slowly, still looking worriedly into her eyes, searching for signs of a breakdown. "He's a good guy, Rose. He wants you to be happy."

She nodded. "You don't think I know that?"

He gave her a half smile. "Honestly, I'm happy not to go!"

"Don't argue with me about it. You're going. Alice put her ass on the line to weasel your way into that ticket, you know. She was desperate for you to go with her-"Jasper turned a little pink, "-so you're gonna go and have a damn good time, ok? I'll be all right here. It's time you got your own life, stopped worrying about me, just for a few days."

For a long moment there was silence.

"Rosalie?"

"Uh huh?"

"You know that I love you, right? You know that I'll do anything to stop you getting hurt ever again?"

She turned her face away so he couldn't see her tears. "Of course I know that." She mumbled, and then hugged him tight.

* * *

"Hellooooo?" Emmett answered his cell in his typical sing-song voice, unreflective of his mood. He hadn't seen Rosalie for the rest of the day. Jasper had come back into the canteen, saying she would be fine, he was still going on the trip – to which Alice's face had lit up and she had hugged him, regardless of everyone watching, and forced Bella into coming on a shopping trip with her to buy a new bikini – but he had said she really was working and was happy being left alone for now.

He didn't want to push her, that was the last thing he wanted, so he stayed away, but it was harder than he had ever been able to conceive before.

When had become almost painful not to be around her, thinking he had upset her?

When had he begun to feel incomplete, almost, for want of a better word, when she wasn't with him, smiling that beautiful smile and staying close to his side?

_When had he gone soft? _He thought, with a cynical smile.

"Emmett, it's Rose."

He immediately sat up from where he had been lying on his bed. "Hey, Rose."

He heard her pause. "I'm sorry for earlier." She said in a small voice, "You were just trying to help."

"It's ok. You all right now?"

"Yeah. Just about."

For a moment he had nothing to say, he was just comforted by hearing her voice, sounding…positive.

"Uh… so your Mom was just on the phone to me?"

He raised his eyebrows. _Flipping interference, _he thought, but fondly. "uh huh?"

"She suggested I stay round yours when Jasper's away. So I don't have to be in an empty house."

The words "empty house" were laced with fear, and he suddenly realised what he had been missing – she was _afraid._

"You gonna?"

"If that's ok."

He chuckled lightly. _If that's ok? _He couldn't think of anything better. "Of course it is." He said, smiling down the phone.

"Great. Esme said I could sleep in Alice's room."

"Uh huh." He made a mental note to buy Esme at least four bottles of wine on Mother's Day.

"Your family's amazing, Emmett, I hope you realise that."

"Oh, I do."

"Well, I'll see you in school tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yeah." He sighed, "You sure you're all right with all of this?"

"Just about." She said. "Sorry about earlier…"

"Don't even mention it." He responded quickly. He knew she hadn't meant it. He'd got to know her well enough for that.

"Bye, Emmett."

"See you, Rosalie."

**A/N: A much longer chapter, for being so tolerant!!! Forget Bio tomorrow, I have my priorities sorted!!! Erm… hope this one was ok, I had to fight to get the Jasper/Rosalie out – it's a difficult dynamic, because I have to be fairly creative, obviously they're not real twins in the series, but I hope I nailed it ;) And I hope you liked the chapter in general really, I've got a very clear idea of where everything is going now, thanks to my planning :D and I think you're going to like it (it's Emmett/Rosalie, why wouldn't you, lol). And for those of you who were excited/disappointed it's going to be only 37 chapter (!) I have two bits of good news:**

**- It's now 38 chapters ;) (on the plan, obv, could change)**

**- And I'm not promising anything, but all these ideas keep popping up for a sequel.**

**And check out my poll on my profile, guys ;)**

**Review, please. Loves xxx**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

"Yes, I'm fine. You have _fun. _Bye, Jazz." Rosalie hung up her cell, turned it off and looked around. It was the fifth time today her brother had called, and the second since she had been in Alice's room, in the Cullens' house. The room reflected the person, it was painted electric blue and everything in it was eccentric, lovely – but bizarre. Chinese lanterns hung from the ceiling, there was a fluffy, deep purple rug on the floor and blue-tacked to one wall there were Alice's sketches – notably, of her family – and, more recently, because the quality of the sketch was even better, of her and Jasper. She looked through them all in turn – they were brilliant. She'd captured Dr Cullen's serious eyebrows, framing kind eyes, Esme's loving smile… Edward's intelligent, considering frown, Emmett… Emmett's _dimples…_ her drawing of Rosalie had obviously been done from memory not long after the first day they met – she was wearing that shirt, and… she let out a little gasp as she looked into the face of the girl in the drawing. She had never seen a truer representation of her own emotions. The girl in the sketch was beautiful, but her mouth was set in a hard line, her jaw clenched as if she was holding back tears, and her eyes bleak and cold. She had to inhale deeply and swallow as she looked at it – was she really that obvious in her face, or was Alice just a perceptive person? Because the girl in the photo… that was the girl she had seen every morning until she met Emmett Cullen.

Despite all this, it was her sketch of Jasper that was her favourite. It was perfect, exactly her brother… but somehow different. It was hard to put into words, even in her mind, but it was as if this Jasper wasn't the Jasper she saw – it was her twin through another's eyes. Eyes that clearly felt a lot for him, because although the drawing was near to an exact likeness, there were things about it that made it different… his mouth curved more into smile than it usually did, his eyes were brighter, more alive, his jaw line slightly stronger… things a lover would see. She found herself smiling involuntarily at Alice's drawings, as if she was smiling at the real people. She made a mental note to tell the younger girl when she got back just how good they were.

"They're pretty darn amazing, huh?" a voice interrupted her from her thoughts. Emmett. She found herself smiling wider, and she turned round to face him.

"Alice is really talented." She said.

He nodded, proudly. "I know. She doesn't seem to, though, says it's just a hobby, but she is really is. Very good, I mean."

Rosalie smiled.

"You settled in all right?"

She nodded. "Jasper's called five times already. I turned off my cell."

Emmett chuckled, then looked serious. "He's just worried about you, Rose. You shouldn't turn it off. He might think there's something wrong."

She nodded, a lazily pressed the button to turn her cell back on.

"I just… don't like to feel like a liability, a… nuisance, that's all."

He sunk onto Alice's low bed next to her. "You're not a nuisance, Rosalie, I promise you that."

She grinned. "Thanks, Emmett." How was it he always knew exactly what she needed? Whether she needed to be left alone, or she needed him to hold her and soothe her, or she needed to laugh – needed him to make her laugh, or she needed him to be frank with her; he always judged her completely accurately, with seemingly little effort.

"So, I was thinking we should watch a movie tonight." He said, "Mom and Dad are working late at the hospital and Edward's taking Bella out - _again – _so I though we could cook some pizzas, watch a movie… Edward's got a pretty massive DVD collection, and Alice and Esme probably have a fair few girly films if that's what your into, or we could just watch whatever's on TV, I dunno…"

Rosalie found herself grinning. Emmett was rambling nervously, looking around. She put a finger to his lips, stopping the flow on nonsensical words.

"Sounds great."

* * *

Emmett walked into the lounge, carrying the big plate piled high with slices of spicy chicken pizza, grinning widely. Rosalie was curled up on the leather sofa, having already put the DVD into the player, dressed in her long-sleeved, long-legged pale pink pyjamas, with her hair loosely plaited either side of her head.

She'd been a lacy nightgowns and lingerie girl, once. But things had changed. There was something about night time that brought the memories back, and like any little child expecting the monsters to come bursting out of the closet any second, warmth kept her safe. Pulling up her blankets around her ears, wearing socks, wearing Jasper's old jumpers… she was a pyjama girl now.

Emmett found himself involuntarily grinning at how adorably beautiful she was, all wrapped up in her blanket, smiling shyly at him. He could wake up to that every morning for the rest of his life.

_Whoah. Where the fuck did that come from? _He swallowed. Too much, too soon.

"What film are we watching then?" he asked, dismissing the feeling and smiling at her, "You've kept me in suspense all day."

Theatrically, Rosalie removed the DVD case from under the blanket. Emmett groaned.

"I swear to God, you are more like Alice than you know…"

She laughed, and pressed play on the remote control. "I like _Dirty Dancing, _so don't you dare insult it."

He nudged her gently, grinning wider still, but he settled into the couch beside her, so the whole length of their arms were touching, leaning slightly into her, savouring the warm feeling of her body beside his. She shuffled down a little further in her space and snuggled into him a little, almost subconsciously, so she was just lower than he was. Almost without realising what he was doing, and simply because it felt like the right thing to do, he wrapped an arm loosely around her shoulders, hand resting on the cushion the other side of her. She chewed her lip a little and gave a nervous smile to herself. Then she rested her head lightly on his shoulder, and watched her movie.

* * *

Rosalie Hale spent her whole life tired, ever since. Sleeping had become, from a welcome necessity, a horrendous chore. It was more difficult than any other thing she had experienced with her new outlook, and therefore she got only a little of it. It didn't take long to become used to being constantly tired, she supposed, like new mothers did and husbands taking extra shifts to support their families – it was just a fact of life. She slept pretty much the minimum amount needed for survival, and masked her face in makeup in the morning to hide the bags under her eyes. Just another hardship on a long list of many.

So falling asleep on Emmett Cullen's shoulder half way through Dirty Dancing, that was more unusual for her than she let on… but his shoulder was warm, his arm around her comforting… and she'd seen the film so many times (back when she and Vera, her best friend from New York, were fourteen and innocent, they had watched it pretty much every weekend for a whole semester), she could quote the lines… her world seemed to fuzz at the edges.

Emmett, who was, to say the least, pretty un-enthralled by the film, when he realised his companion was sleeping, spent his time watching her instead. If it was possible, she looked even more beautiful when she was asleep. Her eyes closed, her long eyelashes on her slightly pink cheeks, her hair mussed and spreading out, as she slept, across his torso, smelling so good…

That was when it hit him, harder than ever before.

_He wanted this girl. _But it was more, so much more, than just that.

_He wanted this girl to be happy, he wanted to glue the broken pieces of this girl back together. He wanted her to smile _all the time_, not just when he made her laugh. He wanted her to smile just that extra bit more when she saw _him_, though. He wanted her to put her arms around him and kiss him and be with him forever…_

And this time, when he thought it, it wasn't choking, it didn't scare him.

He had fallen in love with Rosalie Hale, and there was nothing anyone, including himself, could do to change that.

* * *

When Rosalie awoke, Emmett was asleep, and the DVD was replaying the title menu over and over, the film clearly having finished a while back. She smiled at his smiling, sleeping face, and shook him gently.

He started awake, rubbing his eyes and checking his watch. "It's gone midnight." He whispered, we ought to get to bed."

She nodded. "We were doing a pretty good job of sleeping here, mind you."

He grinned, and eased himself off the sofa. She followed suit. They walked in silence upstairs to their respective rooms. Emmett hovered around the door to Alice's room as Rosalie walked in, then turned to face him.

"Goodnight, Rosalie. See you in the morning."

She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek lightly, lips grazing over the shadow of stubble.

"Night, Emmett."

**A/N: Hope you like ;) Next chap's pretty angsty, just to warn you. There'll be an update tomorrow but not Friday OR Saturday, I'm afraid, as I'm gonna be away from home like all day both days :'(**

**Your reviewing has been AMAZING – I never expected such brilliant response for this fic. Keep it up. Love you,**

**xxx**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

Something wasn't right…

_Just five more minutes of blissful, empty dreams…_

Something. Wasn't. Right.

_Sinking back into the warmth and darkness._

Something, edging at the back of his mind. Something wrong, something out of place. Something…

His eyes flickered open slowly, fighting to adjust to the blackness in his room. As he rubbed them, still wondering why he had woken quiet so abruptly, he heard it. Soft at first, but as he travelled even further back into the land of the waking he could hear a lot more. He couldn't make out what it was… it was a muffled noise, sort-of whistly and wet…

It hit him at once – Rosalie was crying. He'd heard it a few times before, when Alice was little and something had gone wrong – or when Alice and Esme were sat in her room watching _Titanic… _it sounded strange through the wall, but it was definitely crying.

There were two phases, then. The one where he registered. Rosalie. Next room. Crying her heart out. And the one where he moved.

He didn't think, didn't have time to or space in his mind. His revelation earlier was not lost on him, but at the sound of his tears he filled up with _pain. _Actual, physical, tear-your-hair-out-in-frustration pain. Almost choking on the sensation of it all, he threw himself out of bed, through his door and down the corridor, bursting into Rosalie's temporary room.

In hindsight, it probably wasn't the best idea to fly in like that, guns a blazing, but he was finding it impossible to think straight. Hell, when she was around it was always impossible to think straight, whether it was in love, desire, pain…

She was laid, curled up in the fetal position, her shoulders racking with sobs. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her torso, fingernails digging into her own arms, leaving red indents in an age-old pattern. He'd never seen anything look so… alone, so sad. She was crying, muttering something, the pain evident, even in her whisper.

"Stop… please stop… I haven't… I can't… please stop… please… I thought…. Stop, please…"

He switched the little light on Alice's desk on, so as not to startle her, but so he could see properly. There was a spreading wet patch on her pillow where tears were soaking into the material, and that made his jaw clench along with his fists. She'd been crying for a lot longer than he'd been hearing it. It didn't take him long to realise she was asleep, or at least half asleep, still. Her words were incoherent and the tears were leaking out from under closed eyelids.

It was a violent, stark contrast to the peaceful, beautiful sleeping Rosalie by his side on the couch downstairs. He swallowed, trying to take in the situation.

"No… not that… please… I'll do anything… you're hurting me…"

_You're hurting me. _The words only echoed in his brain for a moment before he knew he couldn't stand and watch any longer. He'd always been one to rush into things, and now was no exception. He probably should have called Carlisle, or Esme, and woken her up gently, but her crying was tearing his own heart out as well as her own and he could hardly think with the pain of it – so he did the only thing he could think to do, he rushed to her bed, scooping her up into his arms and holding her tightly.

She screamed.

* * *

_That face… again… looming over her._

_Hands, everywhere…_

_Voices, leering, disgusting voices…_

_Pain… but it didn't hurt anymore, she was just numb, just numb…_

It was almost over, she knew that from experience. This was both the best and worst part. She had stopped feeling the pain by now. This part she just felt _nothing, _but nothing was probably worse. Because in the nothingness she was filled with the realisation of how low she'd sunk, how far gone she was, and then the nausea would rise, and any moment she would wake up…

But arms encased her, holding her, restricting her movement. She was trapped again – but this wasn't in the memories. This was real, tangible, she couldn't move, she couldn't breathe…

She let out a piercing scream, the only thing she was left capable of. A final cry for help, a final shot in the dark… maybe she wouldn't be alone at the end…

Light assaulted her as her eyes opened of their own accord, and she was struggling against the grip, but her struggles died as she saw the person holding her. A familiar, welcome face, one she had come to know almost as well as her own, and a worried, hurt expression she had never seen on it before.

Invisible dimples.

Collapsing against his chest, she realised her mistake.

No one was going to hurt her, for now. She had absolute faith in that. Emmett wouldn't hurt her, that was the one thing she knew for sure in this world that was spinning around her so fast she could only see blur…

He stroked her hair gently, murmuring something, and she couldn't make out even what it was he was saying, but that didn't matter, because she could feel his racing heart pressed against hers… and they were beginning to slow together. He'd pulled her into his lap entirely, she was still curled up in his arms, strong, firm, muscular arms holding her tight – but entirely differently. These arms were holding her for protection, for comfort, not for pain and humiliation. She took fistfuls of his tank top in her hands and buried her head in his shirt, as he murmured the words she'd spent the last nine months telling herself:

"Breathe, Rose, in… out… shhh…"

Her tears soaked through the thin cotton onto his skin, but he didn't move. He kept holding her, loosening his grip a little as he felt her sobs subside.

"You're all right, Rosalie. I've got you… I'm here…"

* * *

The Cullens' house was large, but not large enough for them not to hear. They both rolled over and looked at each other. Esme could read in Carlisle's eyes that he knew why, but she didn't question him.

"Poor girl." She murmured, as she got out of bed and pulled a robe around her. Her husband's eyes were dark, as they were when he was angry at something. He swallowed hard, and she watched his jaw set, reminding her for a second of how much her sons, though they had her dark hair, looked like their father.

"There's nothing I can do for it, Esme." He said softly, as if pleading with her to believe him. She took his hand.

"I know."

"You have no idea how much it kills me not to be able to help a patient that needs it-"

She squeezed the hand in hers. "I do."

There was a deep, full silence for a moment. "We should check on them. If not for her, for Emmett."

They looked in the door of Alice's room, and immediately both knew that they could do nothing their eldest son wasn't already doing. The picture they saw was heartbreaking.

The girl, so beautiful, so broken, curled up on his lap, tears free-flowing from her eyes, gripping at him as if he might fade away.

And their son, who lifted his eyes to meet his mother's, and then his father's. Eyes full of a pain they had never seen there before. Esme took a step back, because the man in those eyes… she didn't even know him. He wasn't the boy she knew.

"She's ok." He whispered, and his voice was hoarse and pained, "I've got her."

They both nodded slowly and left.

* * *

He held her for more than an hour, eventually out of words and just stroking her hair gently, rubbing circles on her back with his hand, pressing his lips lightly to the parting on the top of her head. Her sobs had subsided – she had no more energy for her shoulders to shake like that – but the tears still flowed. When she pulled back from him and wiped her eyes they were red and swollen, and an even more brilliant shade of violet.

"Thank you." She breathed, and bent her head to rest it against his chest. He slid his palms down her arms and took her small, smooth hands in his.

"You're gonna be ok, I promise." He said, and it was probably a stupid thing to say, certainly a damn stupid promise to make, but he knew he had to say it. Because he knew, whatever it took, he would keep it.

She lifted her eyes to his. "It's nothing new, y'know." She said, and she seemed to be only able to manage a whisper right now. "It happens every night. It… it was nearly over… I would have woken up by myself any minute…"

He squeezed her hands and pressed his cheek up against hers briefly, a gesture that meant more than a kiss, more than anything else. Tears of a different kind welled in her eyes.

"I'm sorry I scared you."

She shook her head. "I didn't mean to scream. Sorry."

"You don't have to apologise to me." His reply was instant. There was a silence for a moment.

"You should get back to bed, get some more sleep."

She nodded, lifting the covers she had thrown off and sliding under them. He started to stand up, but she caught his hand.

"Stay with me." She whispered. He looked at her for a moment, stunned.

"I want… I need you to stay with me."

A little light returning to those haunted, dark eyes, he turned off the light and slid under the blankets next to her, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her quivering body close to him.

They slept like that.

**A/N: Hope you liked the angst :(**

**And the pretty long update :). For those of you who were expecting Rosalie to tell Emmett what happened, for me it's kind of like she can't even voice it yet, she physically couldn't tell him if she wanted to, and he's not stupid, especially from this chapter, he's figured most of it out anyway, and he's prepared to wait for her. After all, he loves her :D**

**But she will tell him eventually, I promise you that.**

**Review please!!!  
(and no, I'm not giving ANYONE clues on the sequel, only that it will be Rosalie/Emmett, that's all folks!)**

**xx**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

The sunlight created a shaft of light diagonally across the bed, and it happened to land right in Rosalie's eyes. They flickered open, but something was amiss. Every time she had woken up, for the past God-knows-how-many days ever since, she'd been automatically filled with the fear and the shock and the self-loathing her dreams brought on. But now, all there was was confusion.

That confusion quickly turned into realisation as her eyes fully registered everything around her, and her sense of touch increased. She was used to waking up cold, but not today. She was warm, and it took her only a split second more to realise she was warm because arms were wrapped around her, and – after another moment – that they were welcome arms. Emmett's arm. Comforting arms.

Memories of the night before suddenly assaulted her mind. Terrible memories of the dreams, mixed with… _him. _His arms, his voice, his lips on her hair… they weren't exactly outweighing the horror but they were certainly part way there. She swallowed, her brain beginning to form a plan on how to escape from his grasp, but she realised suddenly _she didn't want to. _Which for some obscure reason made her smile. She shifted slightly in his arms so she could see his face. His eyes were still closed, and he looked more baby-faced than ever when sleeping. His lips were turned down in a worried frown, and his chest was rising and falling gently to the soft flow of his breath. It was almost enough to soothe her back to sleep (which was irony in itself when it came to Rosalie Hale, who had become something of a serial insomniac), but for now she was content just to lay on his chest and watch every breath.

When he did finally awake, he registered quickly, horror choking his throat as his emotions of the night before rose in him. But then his sight focused, and her eyes were _there. _Right there, staring into his. Violet into chocolate, sending him some sort of message he could hardly decode but he knew he loved. He swallowed, suddenly afraid that things that seemed right, sensible, rational, under the dark cover of nightmares, were foolish, forward, dangerous in the light of day.

"Don't run." He whispered. She frowned at him slightly, and he realised other things – her hands were splayed flat on his bare chest, her legs tangled with his, every inch of her against every inch of him. Desire flooded through him, but he had to quell it. He wasn't going to let anything like that scare her away.

"I'm not running." She whispered in response, suddenly looking down at her hands, almost embarrassed. "Thank you for last night."

He shrugged, meaning he felt her weight on him more significantly. "My pleasure…"

Her heart raced as the dimples made their first appearance of the day.

"Seriously, Emmett… I'm a mess, you shouldn't have to deal with that-"

"I want to." He said strongly, his eyes on fire. And for now, that was enough.

* * *

The following night, there wasn't even a question of it. They stayed up late, eating with Edward and Bella and then they challenged the couple to a snooker tournament on Carlisle's old table – which Emmett and Rosalie won. Well, Emmett won, really, whilst Rosalie made a couple of almost-successful attempts at hitting the ball with the cue, while Emmett congratulated her on her triumph every time the ball moved an inch.

They both went their separate ways to change into their pyjamas, and then both of them headed out to the hall way, unsure of how to approach the topic of sleeping arrangements.

They met in the middle.

"I… uh…" Emmett stuttered.

Rosalie raised an eyebrow, a sudden wave of confidence overtaking her, "My room or yours?"

At his stunned face, she let out a little laugh, which reinforced his thoughts on his feelings for her. _That laugh…_

_"_Emmett, I didn't mean…" she trailed off, "Just like last night?"

Realising the innocence behind her words, but also swelling with pride, he smiled. "My turn." He grinned and led her by the hand to his room.

He kissed her cheek goodnight and spooned their bodies together, whispering, "No nightmares, you hear?" into her ear as he turned off the light.

* * *

When Jasper returned, the difference in his sister was no longer subtle. They arrived back at the Cullen's house in the taxi late on Wednesday night and walked through the front door beaming, tanned and chatting full volume about their trip. Esme and Carlisle greeted them warmly, and Rosalie smiled her own hello from the other side of the room – where she was cuddled up to Emmett on the sofa laughing at something he said, her head resting on his shoulder. Jasper hardly had time to scrutinise the pair of them before Alice had put her suitcase down, taken his hands and stood on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear, "She looks _happy._"

She did. Really happy. For a moment, normal…

A wave of jealousy crashed into him then. How could this boy do what he knew he never could? How come Emmett Cullen was the only one, it seemed, to be able to help Rosalie out of her darkness? It didn't seem fair that he was helpless to her demons.

Alice was there, though. She knew his thoughts, and over the past weeks it had become no longer even surprising.

"You might just have to start letting her go, Jasper." She whispered, before kissing him lightly. He knew she was right, she always was right. She was the only person he had ever told what had happened to his sister. That first night in Buenos Aires, he'd caved and told her everything. She'd held him in her little arms whilst he poured out the feelings he'd always been too strong to show – the horror, the lust for revenge, the _guilt, _even, for not accompanying her that night… And she had said nothing, but afterwards taken his face in her hands and given him the most beautiful and wonderful kiss he ever had and ever would experience.

Because it was Alice, he hadn't felt guilty about telling her. There was no reason for her to ever tell another soul, and he wasn't telling her for reasons to do with Rosalie, he was telling her for reasons to do with him. And because it was Alice, when, before she had left him to go to the girl's dorm room, she had whispered "I love you" in his ear, he had simply drawn her closer and breathed in her hair for a moment, knowing she would know that was his own way, for now, of saying it back.

Emmett stiffened as he watched his sister kiss Jasper, and Rosalie noticed. She lifted her head off his shoulder to look at him, smiling slightly at his furrowed brow, his set jaw… it was at that moment she realised the true extent of his love for his sister. And it was beautiful. But as she looked at Jasper's expression when the little Cullen girl pulled away, she knew she loved her brother too much to have Emmett's fierce protectiveness ruin it for him, too.

"She's all right, Emmett." She whispered in his ear, knowing the effect her breath tickling his skin would have on him, and for the first time… _wanting it to._

He met her gaze, leaving Alice and Jasper unchecked to wander away somewhere.

"She's my little sister."

"He's my brother, and he's the best man I know."

Emmett conceded, drawing her a little closer to him. It didn't matter, for now, that he had no idea where the future was going. He had no idea how to help Rosalie overall, how to do anything more than soothe her when the bad times came. It didn't matter that he didn't know whether he would ever be able to tell her how he felt, or whether she would ever have the capacity to feel the same.

Right now, it didn't matter, because joy and hope and _love _encased them – all of them, from Bella and Edward laid side by side in her room, simply staring at each other, Esme and Carlisle, retiring for the night into each other's arms, Alice and Jasper, sharing the beginnings of something wonderful, and Emmett and Rosalie – simply taking comfort in each other's arms.

**A/N: As per usual, hope you liked the chapter, sorry about the wait. Should continue to be regular updates for now :D**

**Hope the Alice/Jasper was all right :S, it sort of just burst out!!!! And… I know Emmett and Rose's relationship is very bizarre at the moment, but it's sort of like Rosalie's emotional state… tumultuous, I think is the word I'm looking for.**

**Review!**

**xx**


	18. Chapter 18

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter Eighteen**

"Emmett!" Esme's voice echoed through the relatively empty house.

"Uh huh?"

"You doing anything important?"

_Apart from pondering if he should ever tell Rosalie his feelings for her, no._

"Not really."

"Would you mind taking a trip to the hospital, love? Your dad left a really important file here and I was just about to take Alice and Bella shopping in Port Angeles – Bella's truck broke down yesterday."

Emmett shrugged, "Sure!" he called, and smiled slightly at Esme's frantic thanks as she ushered the two girls out of the house, the pair of them bickering amiably as Alice begged Bella to invest in some Prada dress she'd been raving about for the past week, and Bella disagreed and tried to persuade Alice to go see a movie instead of shopping. Emmett grabbed the file from Carlisle's desk and got into his Jeep as his mother and the girls drove away down the road. He chuckled to himself a little. He liked Bella; she was the best thing that had ever happened to Edward. She was sensible, pretty, down-to-earth – and the easiest thing in the world to wind up, which always made for Emmett's entertainment when she blushed as he made crude remarks about her and his brother.

She balanced Alice, too. They were complete opposites, but nothing seemed to be able to get beyond that, and they seemed, already, to love each other like sisters. Emmett was pleased about that, as well. He and Alice and Edward had always stuck together, throughout their childhood and through high school, both the boys doting on their little sister, but it wasn't healthy for Alice not to have a female friend too, especially when Emmett moved to college, and, as he had now, Edward found someone…

It was the first time Emmett had ever thought about going to college with a sense of apprehension. He swallowed, unsure how to deal with the emotion he shouldn't even be feeling. He'd been waiting in anticipation to leave Forks for years now, planning various different careers, colleges, he'd even considered going travelling – but all of a sudden none of that seemed urgent anymore. It seemed almost… dreaded. He told himself he couldn't think why he suddenly wanted this year to drag on more than ever before, but he could.

Rosalie.

* * *

He reached the hospital quickly, it was in the centre of Forks, and it being quite the small town it was, he didn't have far to go to find it. Parking, however, was another matter. He sighed, and decided to risk in and park in a designated spot – picking his mother's for safety. If someone clamped him now, he was sure Carlisle would bail him out. After all, he was doing both of them a favour.

Ever since he'd been tiny, the hospital had been almost like a twisted, felt-indifferent-towards, second home. He knew the corridors, the floors and the stairwells as well as he knew Forks High School. Edward had always enjoyed it more, but many summers he and his brother and sister had spent trailing round after Carlisle, being spoilt with cocoas and candy bars by off duty interns and fondly smiled upon by all the nurses – the Cullen children had been an integral part behind the scenes in Forks Hospital for a long time – it was only in the past few years that their visits had ceased to only when necessary. But he still knew his way to Carlisle's office, still received friendly smiles and nods as he walked down the hallways.

His father's office was empty, so Emmett headed to his consulting room. The door was closed, the blinds pulled down, indicating Carlisle was seeing a patient. Emmett walked over to the vending machine to get himself some junk food to pass the time. As he was pressing the buttons, pondering over what to have, he heard his father's door open behind him, and the patient walked out. He was about to turn round when he saw the patient's reflection from behind his shoulder, in the glass of the machine.

Long, blonde hair, violet eyes, walking tall.

A perfect face.

Rosalie.

He would have turned, but he was frozen to the spot, watching the last person he would have expected walk down the hallway and out of sight. She hadn't seen him, she hadn't even looked. She was doing that thing she did when she was on the verge of a breakdown – walked fast with her head held high, not really looking at anything. He knew her that well, at least.

When she was gone, the sound of her clacking heels completely died away, he heard a voice.

"Don't go after her."

He turned. Carlisle was stood in the doorway, giving him a look he had never seen before. He swallowed.

"I… I…"

His father shook his head. "Not now. Give her some time to herself."

Emmett nodded. If there was one thing he trusted, it was his father's judgement, even on this girl he knew far better than him.

"Why… why was she seeing you?"

Carlisle looked almost… disappointed. "You know I can't tell you that."

"Dad, I-"

"Even if I wanted to, Emmett, I couldn't. Her business with me is strictly confidential."

Emmett clenched his fists. Anger was rising inside of him, faster than he'd ever felt it before. That, he decided, was mainly because he knew his father was right.

"Is she hurt?"

"Emmett…"

He grit his teeth and squared up to his father; he had been the same height has him for almost two years now, and they were eye to eye. "Is. She. Hurt?"

Carlisle took a deep breath. Something Esme had said the previous weekend stirred in his mind.

_There was something else in his eyes. I didn't even know him, __Carlisle__…_

That was what he was seeing now. A son he didn't even know, completely consumed by emotion for this girl. A son full of feelings, but even he himself didn't know what feelings yet, whether it was rage, revenge, protectiveness, love…

"She was." He responded slowly. "She's mending now."

Emmett swallowed, realising reasonably that was all he could expect from his father. He sighed, and wordlessly handed over the file.

"You left this at home."

Carlisle nodded thanks, wishing there was something he could say, but thinking of nothing, he let his eldest son walk away down the corridor, not even looking back once.

He took a couple of steps back into his office, closing the door and bracing himself against it for a moment. He wished Esme was there, to give him some sort of reality check on the situation, but he couldn't help feeling suddenly very emotionally invested, something he prided himself on being able to distance himself from – it was part of what made him the brilliant doctor he was. But the Rosalie Hale case, that was different. Had been from the moment the files were sent down from Manhattan, when he'd looked over the files and seen the atrocities done to a young girl only a year older than his own daughter. He'd told none of his family about it that night, only made sure he lingered a little longer than usual when kissing his daughter goodnight, and thanked God it was some other girl, not his, that was dying inside.

Head trauma, neck abrasions, fractured wrists, psychological damage, not to mention the superficial, healed wounds. Ironically, those wounds – the ones leaving no scars, no reminders, were the ones that had cut her the deepest. They were the ones that had stripped away her dignity and any last ounce of self-respect she might have had. He had systematically read through her file, highlighting the current, and remaining, problems, and he had set up a treatment plan for the day the girl moved to Forks. It hadn't crossed his mind she would be a senior in the same school as his children. To him, before he met her, she was hardly even real, just another victim of an atrocity, just another patient.

She haunted him, when she met him. How could something so beautiful be so broken? He felt that old, familiar anger rise inside him when she talked nonchalantly about her parents, how they hadn't even considered it necessary to deliver their children to the other side of the continent. That anger he'd managed to control since that distant time… that time he'd first laid eyes on his future wife, bruised and beaten and crying…

He swallowed, hard. That wasn't relevant, not now, not to this girl. He wanted to do everything he could for her, now, and he would. He would try.

Then his son met her, and he knew his son well enough to see from that day forward something had changed in his eyes. And he knew then that he had to help save Rosalie Hale. He took care of her head trauma check, put his best staff on everything else, whilst promising her anonymity and total professionalism, so his children would never know. That was what she wanted. An ounce of normality in her broken world.

He noticed a change in her too, at their fortnightly appointments, as the time went by and she grew closer to his son.

As much as he was loathe to admit it, there was only so much the best medical and psychiatric care could do for Rosalie Hale.

The rest was up to Emmett Cullen.

* * *

Emmett toyed with his cell phone in his pocket, knowing how easy it would be to ring Rosalie and ask her to meet him, and then to question her. It had been a lot easier to accept not knowing what had happened to her when he had been assuming all the scars left were psychological. But for her to be seeing a doctor, and a brain surgeon at that… he was worried, so worried his stomach knotted and bile rose in his throat. A hundred scenarios dashed through his mind, and he knew he was getting close. He wasn't stupid. He'd heard her screams in the night, seen the fear in his eyes as he kissed… he _knew. _

Someone had taken the most precious thing from her, something no one, not even him, could give her back. She was breaking, but from the inside out, and instead of feeling like he was gluing her, however slowly, back together, he felt like all he was doing was holding all her pieces in place, but the moment he let go or got distracted or moved in the wrong direction, she would fall apart and all his work would be undone.

He couldn't call Rosalie.

Jasper. He would know. He was pretty sure he could phone and demand answers, but to what effect? He didn't know the other Hale twin well enough to know whether his loyalty to Rose would extend to protecting her secret at all costs, or telling someone who might be able to help. It would be so easy, though, and then at least he could say he had tried.

He needed answers. He felt sick to his stomach thinking of her, bleeding, bruised, hurt in _any _way, let alone like _that, _and he needed to know what sick fuck was responsible for everything that had happened to the girl he loved…

_Shit, Emmett. You're in deep, now._

He took a deep breath, and removed his hand from clasped around his phone. He would wait. She would tell him, one day, if she felt like he did. He could wait.

His phone buzzed. Her name came up on the screen, and for a surreal moment he thought she _had _seen him in the hospital, and she was going to tell him everything and just let him hold her until even a tiny bit of the pain had seeped away.

"Hey, Rose."

"Heya… uh… Bella just texted me and said they met up with Jessica Stanley in town, and she's invited us all to her party tonight…"

Emmett frowned. Jessica Stanley had made it clear, ever since Edward rejected her offer of a date to the Christmas Ball back in middle school, that she hated the whole Cullen family. "Really?"

He could almost hear the smile in Rosalie's voice. "Uh huh. I said I'd go… but, er… I don't wanna go…"

_Alone, _echoed in the silence, the word she couldn't say.

"I'll come with you." Emmett said, reinforcing all his jumbled thoughts into one single purpose. "I'll look after you, Rose."

A long silence, before, "Thanks, Emmett."

"My pleasure. See you."

"See you."

It was only after the dialling tone that he said it:

"I love you."

**A/N: Hope you liked it. Tried to get into ****Carlisle****'s head there, which was easier said than done :P**

**No update tomorrow, I'm afraid, cos it's my Mum's birthday and I'm going out straight from college with her. Should be good. But I'll post one Wednesday, as long as my life is still running according to plan and I haven't failed to meet any deadlines!!!!**

**Hope you're still enjoying it, and I just wanted to say whilst I have the chance that the response to this fic has been so amazing, I can't get over it. This is my most reviewed fanfiction, and I did not expect this much, coming from a background pairing, and an AU, and all that. I truly am stunned. Pleasantly stunned, however. Thank you, amazing Twilight reviewers, (especially all you RoseEmmett fans), you're encouraging me to stay in this fandom forever!!!!!**

**Keep up the good work, guys!**

**glw**


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen**

"You look great." Emmett said, grinning, as Alice, Bella and Rosalie emerged from Alice's room, after the youngest Cullen had finished with them. Alice was dressed unusually – in true Alice style, in a short black lacy dress with a little black shrug and a pair of heels; but she still only reached Emmett's shoulder. Bella had on a pair of Alice's faded jeans and a pretty bright blue top that flowed down to her hips. Emmett didn't fail to notice Edward's mouth curl into a smile when he saw her. But he only really had eyes for one person – and there were no prizes for guessing who that might be. Rosalie was wearing black jeans and white shirt, opened to reveal a pale pink camisole underneath, showing just enough skin to make his heart race. It was just right, her outfit – modest, but beautiful. Alice had curled her hair and pinned half of it up, and what was remaining was cascading over her shoulders in blonde waves that sped his heart rate. She walked over to him, smiling nervously, and he could read many things in that smile.

She was terrified, on one hand, of being completely at the mercy of so many _people._

She was excited, on another, that she was able to do this.

She was ready.

He leant forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "You look beautiful, babe." He whispered. Where _that word _had come from, he didn't know. _Babe. _It sounded so… intimate. Like they were more than they were, like they'd known each other forever. He'd heard his father call his mother it, quietly, lightly, when he thought the children weren't listening. And to Rose… it had just _slipped _out. There was a moment where he thought she might react, but her smile only widened a little and her arm snaked around his waist. He shivered a little as their bodies pressed together.

_For god's sake, pull yourself together, Emmett._

They headed out to the car.

* * *

By the time they arrived at Jessica Stanley's house, it was clear that it was _not, _as Jessica had said to Bella, a "small party". Music was blaring out that they could hear in the street, and lights were on in every room. A group of people were congregating outside, smoking, and there was already a layer of beer cans and empty bottles on the front grass. Emmett looked nervously to Rosalie, wondering how the hell she was going to react, but she simply rolled her eyes a little.

Come to think of it, Emmett thought, whatever had happened to her would not have erased everything that happened in her life before. She wasn't going to be phased by every little thing. He needed to have a little more faith in her.

"Ready?" she asked, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear. He nodded, and double locked the Jeep, leaving it just around the corner, afraid of what might happen to it if it was right outside. Edward and Bella, fingers interlaced, disappeared inside the house. Alice and Jasper hovered back with Emmett and Rosalie, and they walked through the front door together. Jessica Stanley was dancing just through the next doorway, in what had clearly once been the sitting room. Her hair was flying everywhere and she was clutching a bottle of something that looked suspiciously like vodka in her hand. There was no way she had any control of the situation.

"Rose, if you wanna…" _Damn, hadn't he just made a promise to himself that he would have more faith in her?_

"I'm fine, Emmett. I've been to parties before. Come on, we can't leave Bella and Edward here by themselves anyway."

He was about to argue, deducing from her excuse that she'd rather not be there really. But Rosalie had taken his hand and was pushing through the throngs of dancing people at varying degrees of intoxication, headed for the kitchen. He swallowed some comment about Edward and Bella being Edward's problem, not his, if she didn't want to be there, and let her drag him through.

When she cracked open two beers and they leant against the empty counter in the kitchen for a moment, Rosalie was having second thoughts. She wanted more than anything to show Emmett that she wasn't a hopeless case, wasn't really a train wreck, that she could deal with this, that she could be normal eighteen year old girl, just for an evening. So she took a deep breath, as she always did, and quelled her nerves for now. It was like she was testing herself, really. If she could do things like that, then maybe, just maybe… one day what she had with Emmett could become something more.

* * *

By 10.30, the party was insane. The Cullens (Alice and Emmett, anyway) and the Hales had spent the first few hours in the kitchen, dancing, laughing, eating a little – talking with a few of the nicer kids from Forks High. Rosalie had calmed down a little, thinking if it was staying like this everything would be fine. Emmett was constantly on guard for anything that might spook the blonde, seemingly-at-ease beauty next to him, but after an hour or two he began to relax and have a good time. He was enjoying dancing close to Rosalie, enjoying the way the dim half light in the room bounced off her features and shone from her eyes, and how she was smiling, after two cans of beer she was smiling, and her fingers were constantly laced with his. He was enjoying knowing he could trust Jasper to keep an eye on his little sister, and Edward to take care of himself, and focus on the girl in front of him.

After a while, she took him by the hand and they ducked out of the back door, Rosalie shivering slightly at the cold. Emmett immediately offered her his jacket, but she shook her head. The music was still too loud to hear each, but Rosalie hadn't dropped his hands, and that made him smile.

"You ok?" he mouthed, and she nodded, smiling.

In truth, she was giddy. Giddy with the beer, giddy with the dancing… giddy with him. She snaked her arms up his arms and her head was slowly moving closer to his, until he could feel her warm breath upon his lips, she was that close…

"Emmett!"

They broke apart abruptly, and he watched colour flood Rosalie's cheeks. Jasper was stood opposite them, tears streaking his face.

"What, Jazz?" Rosalie asked, seeing her brother looking so pained.

"It's… it's Alice, Emmett. I think someone spiked her drink… she passed out…"

Rage, boiling inside him. Fear. Madness. He glanced at Rosalie, and her eyes now mirrored her brother's, wide with fear.

"Go." She whispered, but he didn't need the permission. "She won't want people crowding her. I'll wait here."

He followed Jasper through the multitudes of people, shoving and elbowing. At that moment there was only one thought on his mind – Alice. Perfect little Alice, with her crazy ideas and her big smiles and her dark, dark eyes. Someone had tried to hurt Alice, maybe succeeded… anything could happen.

Emmett had never felt as helpless as he did in that moment, but something took over him then, and maybe it was something he had inherited from his father. Whilst inside he was panicking madly, his heart thumping, and he wanted to be sick, the only thing his body was prepared to do was fight through the crowds after Jasper, to find her. Then he saw her. Angela Weber, a nice enough girl from Alice's junior class was sitting over her, holding her hand, tears streaming down her own face. Alice was sprawled on the floor, her head to one side, her hair mussed and her cheeks paler than ever before. He gulped, and knocked Angela aside as he took his sisters hand. She was so pale, and so small… and he couldn't understand why anyone would ever want to hurt his little sister.

He looked up and met Jasper's eyes.

"Call an ambulance. And the find Edward."

"I'd like to stay with her-"

"Call. The. Ambulance." Emmett said through gritted teeth, knowing that if he unclenched any muscle in his body, he would explode with shock.

He placed two fingers to Alice's neck, feeling her erratic, faint pulse with a heavy heart.

**A/N: Oooooh, cliffhanger. This was pretty random, it wasn't really in my plan, it just sort of flowed out… but now I've got a brilliant idea of where it's going, anyway. Sorry there was no update yesterday, I have no decent excuse (only I found the new Bones episode illegally online BEFORE it even aired and spent most of my evening being coached by my friend how the hell to download it, and the various programs needed to run it ;))**

**Hope you liked this chapter, I might post the next one tonight to make up for yesterday – and because I can't post Friday and possibly Saturday again, due to going to see my best friends in a show and work :( **

**I'll try.**

**Review, love you guys.**

**xxx**


	20. Chapter 20

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter Twenty**

Time seemed to pass in a blur, peopled flitting around, but Emmett did not move. He stayed close to Alice, holding her hand and feeling her pulse, checking her breathing at small intervals. It was as if everything had stopped inside him, and her, yet everyone else was going on – not without noticing, but without breaking. Jasper had returned to Alice's side moments after he had called the ambulance, and had sat on her other side, holding her other pale, limp hand, and tears running off his face silently. He and Emmett didn't meet each other's gaze, both of them fearing where their emotions might take them. Emmett's rage was building inside, but somehow he was detached from it, and he knew if he looked at Jasper, it might all come spilling out. _He was supposed to be __Alice__'s protector…_

Jasper was hurting, more than he ever knew possible. He could not even begin to even put into coherent thought what was happening, only the overwhelming desire to be the one in Alice's place, lying there pale and cold, and looking hardly alive…

Edward was there, suddenly, Bella holding his hand, both of them pale, their eyes blank with shock, horror.

"What happened?" he growled, and for all his faults Emmett could hear the raw emotion in his voice. Edward loved Alice as much as he did. When no one responded to him, Angela spoke up in a small voice.

"She just collapsed. She hadn't had very much to drink. I…we think someone spiked it."

"Sonofabitch." Edward muttered, putting his palm to his sister's face, feeling her cold. "I'm gonna kill-"

Emmett gave his brother a warning look. If Edward said anything more, he feared he would explode. Jasper's knuckles were turning white from his grip on Alice's hand…

Moments passed, again, and there was no change. The three boys, all of whom loved Alice Cullen more than they could put into words, sat around her, each of them offering silent prayers in their own way, for her survival.

* * *

_He caught her off guard, and she could smell the alcohol on his breath, and unpleasant memories were clearer than ever before…_

* * *

"The ambulance is here." Angela said softly, and Emmett scooped Alice into his arms as if she weighed near to nothing, and carried her out the front of the house.

Then, the paramedics were there. Emmett stood, frozen, flanked by Jasper, who was still crying silent, motionless tears, and Edward, fists and teeth clenched, as they checked her over. Then one of them turned to the three of them, and if he was shocked to see the three boys looking so distraught, he said nothing.

"We're going to take her in. One of you can ride in the ambulance; the rest of you should follow by car, if you haven't had too much drink to drive."

Emmett swallowed. It was his car. He tried to make the words flow out, but there was something in his throat, stopping him. He couldn't leave Alice, not… not now…

Edward was shaking his head. "I can't drive, man, sorry."

Jasper's eyes were wild. "Sorry." He echoed.

Emmett clenched and unclenched his fists slowly. He would follow, right behind. It would be all right… _he couldn't…_

"Rosalie." Jasper said, as if having a moment of enlightenment.

Emmett's heart wrenched. On one hand, he was suddenly tearing apart inside that he had – however briefly, and under a huge amount of duress – forgotten about her completely. Forgotten that he had abandoned her in a house she wasn't comfortable in, a situation she wasn't comfortable in, probably terrified and completely alone. The part of him, the part that hadn't even existed back in the summer, the part that loved Rosalie Hale, wanted to send Jasper on the ambulance, grab Rosalie, make sure she was ok and then follow the ambulance to the hospital as fast as he could. On the other hand, however, it was _Alice__. _A dozen images flashed through his mind, Alice through… through forever. Her being only two years younger than him, he could hardly remember a time without her.

Rushing to the hospital, strapped into the back of Carlisle's car with baby Edward in his car seat beside him, as Esme screamed in the front for them to hurry….

Sitting on the couch, tiny little Alice in his lap with her sprinkling of dark hair and wide eyes…

Tearing around in their back garden every summer, always faster than Alice, always stronger than Alice, but always letting her win the occasional round of tag…

**That **part of him wanted to tell Jasper to find Rosalie, just this once, and he wanted to stay by his sister's side, do everything in his power to…

_What are you thinking? There's nothing you can do for her, not now. _

A realisation washed slowly over him, as he looked at Jasper, the look in his eyes almost haunting, Alice, pale and weak, being wheeled into the ambulance, and Edward, head on Bella's shoulder, silently soaking his own grief and fear into her.

Things had changed, and were changing. They weren't the three, infallible Cullens anymore. Edward turned to Bella for everything, Alice's eyes lit up just that tiny bit more when Jasper was around, and Emmett – Emmett spent all his time devoted to Rosalie, whether subconsciously or not. He would, and he knew that without a doubt, do anything for her. Emmett wasn't Alice's number one anymore, and neither was Edward. She had someone else now, someone who would be the first person she thought about every morning and the last person she thought about every night…

That split second of realisation made his decision for him.

"Jazz, go in the ambulance." He said, and was surprised how level his voice sounded.

"Emmett-"

"Don't argue. Go; make sure she's all right. Don't let anything happen to her, you hear?"

Jasper nodded bleakly and rushed into the ambulance with the little Cullen girl.

Emmett turned to Edward, his heart already thumping violently. "I'm going to get Rosalie. Then I'll drive us all to the hospital."

Edward didn't move from Bella's arm, but she nodded sadly at him as he ran back into the house.

* * *

_She wasn't going to be weak this, time she was going to fight, but it was harder than she had anticipated, and the beer was clouding her brain._

* * *

He rushed through the kitchen, calling her name wildly, but to no avail. Every moment where he didn't lay eyes on her, his heart rate speeded up and his throat choked a little more.

_Alice, Rosalie…_

He burst out of the back door, and took in everything in less than a second.

Some guy, some average-looking, _harmless-_looking, normal guy was with her. Had her pinned against the wall, holding her hands out of the way, face assaulting her neck. Her neck was cricked back, her eyes wide in fear and pain. There was a tiny moment where her eyes caught his, and the emotions running wild through them very nearly drove Emmett to insanity, for just a moment. Then he moved… quicker than he ever had before.

He was pulling the guy off, and Rosalie crumpled to the floor. Rosalie's attacker turned, his eyes hazed with drink, and threw a punch at Emmett's head. Full of rage and fury and grief, Emmett didn't have time to prepare and felt the world spin for a moment before his instincts kicked in. Rosalie was curled in a ball on the floor, clutching her knees to her chest, the same way she had been when he had followed her from high school that first day into the woods. Every good thing he had done – had been undone. Fire coursed through him and he reciprocated this boy's blow with his own, harder, faster, stronger.

Rosalie could see it all through tear-hazed eyes. Her Emmett – _when did he become hers? – _punching and kicking and fighting with all his might, his eyes black with anger, all the muscles in him tense and alert. But the other guy was strong, she had felt that for herself, and somehow he managed to turn Emmett and punch him. His head snapped back, hitting the wall, and he could feel something warm and sticky dripping down his neck.

His hearing was muffled, but he could hear Rosalie crying his name. The guy was walking towards her, reaching out for her, leering, "Now, I hadn't finished, _baby…_"

A deep breath, and although the world was spinning, Emmett's arm pulled back and he hit the guy around the head, sending him crashing to the floor, staggering a fair few feet due to his intoxicated state. Then Emmett himself stumbled down, at Rosalie's feet, and he was at eye-level with her, their eyes mirroring each other's – a mixture of love, fear, pain and anger. She reached for him tentatively, a single tear tracking down her cheek.

Her hand came into contact with his, her mouth opened to form some words.

And then he knew no more.

**A/N: Not my best chapter, I fear. And I'm sorry this update was so long in coming. I'm not sure whether there'll be one tomorrow either, it's dependent on whether I go to orchestra or not. Tonight's LOST night in the ****UK****, so I won't get a whole chapter written up to post tomorrow, but I might make a start.**

**Anyway, I hope you're OK with where this is going. I'm just going to put you all at ease now and tell you that although I am IN LOVE with RosalieAngst, I don't really do character deaths in big fics like this, and it's not going to get too tragic, so never fear!!! Please review, let me know what you think and I'll update Tuesday at the very latest.**

**Love all you guys.**

**xx**


	21. Chapter 21

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter TwentyOne**

_Alice__… Rosalie…_

Light flickering, bright white light, invading the relative safety of his unconsciousness.

_Alice__… Rose…_

Sounds were suddenly also apparent, gentle bustling and footsteps, a muffled voice.

_Alice__…_

_Rose…_

His eyes flickered open, and the first face he registered above him was his brother's. Edward, he had never seen looking so bad. His coppery hair was tousled, messy, there were huge grey bags under his brilliant green eyes and his face was set into a frown. A quick glance behind Edward registered the sun streaming in through the window – it was day.

Edward took only a few moments to realise his brother's eyes were opened, and immediately he pressed an alert button before stepping forward, almost awkwardly, and taking Emmett's hand roughly.

"You ok, mate?" he asked, and his eyes were soft, but not overly concerned.

Everything seemed to fall into place in that moment, everything that had happened at the party come flooding back. He winced, suddenly feeling his throbbing head, where it had hit the wall, and the fear choked up in him as he remembered more and more.

"A…Alice?" he questioned, and his throat was dry. Edward nodded grimly.

"She's gonna be ok. Luckily all it was was an excess of alcohol the drink had been spiked with… you know how small she is… anyway, they pumped her stomach last night and she's all right now, she was awake before you."

Emmett let out a deep sigh, slowly. _Alice __would survive._

"As for you, you got knocked out pretty bad. Rosalie saved you; we were all too caught up in what had happened to Alice to even notice you weren't coming back. She wrapped her jumper round your head to stop the bleeding and sent someone to call another ambulance. She practically carried you – impossible as that might seem – halfway through the house, until she got our attention. They loaded you into the ambulance with Alice and brought you both to the hospital. Mom and Dad almost had simultaneous heart attacks when the ambulances opened down in the pit…"

Emmett smiled a little. Edward took another deep breath. "We were worried about you, man. You had to have stitches and CT scans and everything, and they kept you sedated for a while because of the pain. But then Dad gave you the all-clear and-"

He was cut off as a nurse bustled into the room, followed by Carlisle and Esme, wide-eyed and panting, as if they had run all the way from Alice's room.

"Emmett!" Esme called, and bore down on her son, pressing kisses to his face. "You stupid, stupid boy!"

"Mom!" he grunted, and meekly she stepped back. Carlisle grasped his son's hand briefly, his eyes conveying everything he could.

"Thank God you're all right…" Esme whispered, her hand finding its way into Carlisle's without even thinking, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Mom… Dad… I'm not gonna say I'm sorry, cos I was looking out for Rose, and…"

Carlisle gave a slight smile, almost bittersweet. "She's been waiting for you outside, the whole time, son. She refused to leave, even though she wasn't allowed in your room until you woke up."

Emmett gave a small smile himself, and looked up at his parents. Edward gave his hand a final rough squeeze and left the room, murmuring something about Alice.

"Can you imagine what it was like to see not one, but two of our children coming through those ER doors?" Esme whispered, her knuckles turning white where she gripped the rail of the bed. "I… I thought…"

"Shhhh." Carlisle muttered softly to her, and Emmett, for a moment, had the sense he often got around Jasper and Alice, that he was intruding on something heavenly. Then his father turned to him.

"I know what you did, Emmett, you did for the right reasons, and for that, I'm proud. I even admire that. But… you have to learn, son, to _think _before you act."

Emmett gritted his teeth. Could they not understand? Had Rosalie not told them what had happened?

"You know, Dad, even better than I do, I think, about how fragile she is! I… I had too do something…"

"You could have pulled him off, and gotten her away from there… and no one would have been hurt…"

Emmett sighed. He could see where they were coming from, now, when everyone was safe, in the light of day. But in that moment, thinking that his sister was on the verge of life and death, and seeing the fear in Rosalie's eyes and the look on her attacker's face, there had only been one thing – to make him pay for the pain he was causing to the girl he loved.

So maybe he had let his anger get the better of him, let the rage overtake him. But he had been filled with a single thought. He couldn't do anything, in that moment, to help Alice. He couldn't do anything, ever; it seemed, to help Rosalie get over her past. But in that split second he could save her – just for now. And so he did, the only way he knew how. With fists and curses and red-filled vision.

Esme put out a hand and stroked his cheek gently. Normally, he would have shied away from that contact, but today, he didn't mind. There was something unparalleled about a mother's touch when you felt like the world, from it's position on your shoulders, was crushing you. He gave his mother a half apologetic, half defiant smile.

"You're going to be a good man, Emmett." She whispered softly. He couldn't stop the tear rolling down his cheek at that word. Some good man he was – leaving Alice to be victimised, leaving Rosalie to her worst nightmare… yeah, whatever.

"You're also going to have a slight scar." Carlisle said, reverting to his doctor's voice to disguise the emotion. "It won't be too visible, just at the back of your skull, right on your hairline. Be grateful it wasn't anything worse. You're likely to have mild concussion – you shouldn't sleep tonight, but other than that, you've escaped relatively unscathed."

Emmett gave a brief grin at that. Then his vision darkened.

"The… the other guy…"

Carlisle's face set. "I spoke to Jessica Stanley when she had sobered up enough to understand me. It seems the guy who… attacked… Rosalie was one of her cousins from Seattle, a James someone. She wasn't all too keen on him being there, anyway, seems he's got a bit of a reputation. Anyway, it appears he did more damage to you than you did to him, and he didn't check into the hospital at all. Jessica thinks he's gone back to Seattle, I'm afraid."

Emmett clenched and unclenched his fists. "And… Alice?"

Esme stiffened and walked towards the window.

"We don't know yet, and it's going to be hard to tell. One thing I know for sure is that none of you will be going to any parties like that again any time soon. And Alice has learnt her lesson to never let her drink out of sight." He sighed, the sigh of a father who could do nothing more, in this situation, for his children. "I'm sorry, Emmett, there's no investigation we can take. She'll make it, that's the most important thing."

Emmett nodded, but pointedly avoided his father's gaze. "I… I'd like to see Rosalie now, if that's ok. Shouldn't keep her waiting any longer…"

The joke fell on dead ears, but Carlisle nodded, and Esme kissed his forehead, and they left the room.

* * *

She opened the door tentatively and walked in. He looked bizarre, still huge and strong, but somehow restrained and tired against the hospital bed. His eyes lit up when she entered, something he didn't fail to notice, and as she went to sit down on the chair opposite his bed, he gently patted the space next to him on the covers. She hesitated for a moment and then sat beside him, taking his hand in her own.

"Hey." He whispered. She smiled, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion.

"Hey."

So far, she had been coping. After the initial shock of the attack at the party, her instincts to take care of Emmett, protect her own protector, had taken over. She'd travelled to the hospital, waiting, hanging onto every second, waiting for the despair, the madness, the memories, to descend.

But they never did. She was too busy clinging onto every word she could stretch from Carlisle and Esme about Emmett's recovery, and praying to every God she'd ever even heard of that he would be ok. And now he was awake, and lying in front of her - and still the emotions didn't crash down on her, ruin her all over again.

And she begun to think maybe they never would.

"You all right?" he asked gently, stroking his thumb over the back of her hand, similar to his parents – a reflex action, almost without conscious thought.

She nodded, a smile breaking out on her face as she finally accepted it, "Yeah… actually, I am."

He gave her a confused frown, and then a smile.

"You're like my knight in shining armour, you know that, right? No matter how lame that sounds…"

He grinned, and cocked his head to one side. "That's pretty lame, Rose."

She laughed a little. "No, seriously, Emmett, I… I thought I was… I was going to fall again, but then you were there."

_But then you were there. _It really was _that _simple.

He smiled, slowly levering himself onto his elbows and propping himself up onto his pillows. His head was throbbing, and he winced for a second.

"_You _ok?" she asked, worrying about the frown lines setting in from the pain. He nodded, and bent his head forward so she could see the stitches on the back of his head.

"I will be."

She stared at the wound for a moment, and he couldn't even begin to read what was behind her eyes. And then she spoke.

"We match." She whispered, and turned her body away from him and lifted up her long hair. There was a silvery white scar at the join between her hair and her skin, cutting through the blonde in a jagged white line at the base of her skull, not unlike what his own would form. She dropped her hair down as quickly as she had lifted it, and turned back to him, eyes wide and warm. He swallowed, knowing this was another step towards the truth of it all.

"We match." He whispered, and despite the pain, leant forward to kiss her forehead lightly, taking both her hands in his.

And then they held each other tightly.

**A/N: I updated, I couldn't stay away! Hope you liked this chapter, I had a lot I wanted to say, and I'm not sure I managed it all. :S Anyway, I know it may not have been as angsty as many of you were expecting, but I've got plenty of angst lined up for the pair of them, and I wanted to show how much Rosalie's grown in her coping mechanism, and her reliance on Emmett. Please review and let me know what you think :)**

**Should be another update tomorrow, guys. I'm thinking if I do at least five updates a week I can get this done within about four weeks!!!!**

**BUT… I'm giving you advance warning, I'm off skiing on the 13th February until the 22nd, so I'll have to take a break then :S**

**Whatever happens, this will be wrapped up by the end of February. I've already starting planning ideas for Veiled Thorns :D:D:D**

**End of rambling, now. Off to bed, it's been a long day. Thanks guys.**

**xxx**


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter TwentyTwo**

He was discharged from the hospital the next day, Alice as well. It was the first time he had seen his sister since the party, and he wrapped her in his arms and rocked her gently, reassuring himself far more than he was reassuring her. She lifted her face to his, and gave him a small, very Alice smile.

"Jasper told me what you did, at the party. I love you, Emmett."

He was too choked up to respond, but he hugged her again, and something passed between them – an unspoken promise that they would he would look out for her forever, regardless of Jasper, regardless of Rosalie.

He walked out, slightly shaky still, but strong, and recovering quickly. The bright, _real _light of the outside seemed to sting his eyelids a little. So much had changed.

* * *

They returned to school on Monday, not wanting anyone to talk more than they already were. But something else had changed – they all rode to school together, now. Edward would pick up Bella in his Volvo, and more often than not Rosalie would drive them all in the red convertible, Emmett sat beside her, close to her side, not hiding anything anymore. Alice and Jasper sat in the back. Heads close, murmuring things that were for no one else to hear.

The whispers were bad those first few days, and Jessica Stanley wasn't exactly happy with them – because of the tight-knit community in Forks, once two of the Cullens had been admitted to hospital, her secret party had become common knowledge, particularly to her parents. Bella had struggled to be bothered that her brief friendship with the other Junior was over, and none of the others even seemed to notice.

But the whispers took longer than they had thought to dissipate.

_Alice Cullen took an overdose, haven't you heard, she's unhinged._

_Alice Cullen tried to kill herself on Saturday night at Jessica Stanley's party._

_Did you hear what happened to Alice Cullen?_

_Emmett Cullen punched a guy at that Junior Party at the weekend._

_Emmett's girlfriend, that Rosalie girl – she cheated on him and he beat up the guy._

_Did you hear that Emmett Cullen and Rosalie Hale are breaking up?_

Rosalie, maybe unsurprisingly, took it well. She was used to the rumours, used to the speculation – she didn't feel the need to even begin to care. Emmett didn't even notice, he was too wrapped up in her, and Alice was employing her I-don't-care attitude to the absolute maximum. It was Jasper that seemed more bothered, but even he didn't say something.

The next week, one of the football team got expelled for drug pushing, and everyone had something else to talk about.

The next few weeks passed relatively uneventfully, and soon November was slipping into December and it was now impossible to deny it was winter. Emmett, for the first time, welcomed the cold – it gave him extra excuses to get closer to Rosalie, to wrap his arm tightly around her waist as they walked through the parking lot, now attracting a considerably smaller amount of stares. It allowed him to put a blanket around the two of them when they curled up on her sofa watching movies when she was alone in the house because Jasper was out with Alice, and he was keeping her company. It allowed him to hug her tightly if he caught her shivering, and rub his hands up and down her arms to warm her up. Plus, there was something romantic about the snow, when it fell.

There was nothing romantic about where he was now, sat on his bed, working through some awkward math problems, when Edward stumbled in, his face twisted into some distortion of emotion, his eyes wild.

"Emm, can I talk to you for a second?"

Edward, always keeping to himself, always smooth talking… sounded so… broken. Emmett sat up.

"Sure."

Edward sat on Emmett's computer chair, spinning absent mindedly on the wheels, kicking the bedroom door shut.

"Edward?" Emmett frowned, "Everything ok?"

"It's… Bella…"

"Did you guys break up?"

Edward shook his head fiercely. "No. Not at all. Emm, I don't know what to do…"

"What's happened? You in some kinda trouble?"

Edward swallowed, visibly, and looked out of the window at the white clouds, refusing to meet his brother's gaze.

"She… she might be pregnant."

_Wow. _Emmett hadn't been expecting that. Emotions rushed through him, for a moment. Shock, at first. Then worry. Neither Edward nor Bella were old enough to raise a child. Something else… was that jealousy that his brother had experience _this _before him?

He took a deep breath.

"You… you sure?" Emmett asked.

Edward shrugged, swallowed again, and this time made eye contact. His eyebrows were furrowed and a strange dark fire seemed to burn behind his green eyes. He reminded Emmett, in that moment, of a caged animal.

"It would only be a few weeks. She's not sure, she took a test, and it was positive, but she took another one, and it was negative."

Emmett ran a hand through his dark curls. "Has she told anyone else? Her dad?"

Edward gave a bitter laugh. "No. And for my sake I'm glad."

Emmett nodded. "What about you? Have you told Mom and Dad?"

That flicker again, something feral. "I can't… they'll…. They'd be…." He trailed off, but Emmett understood.

"Disappointed? Angry? Maybe, Ed, but they'd come through for you, they always will…"  
Edward sighed, and clenched and unclenched his fists repeatedly. "I know… if this goes through… I'll have to tell them. I just… just in case it all goes away, I don't want to tell them just yet."

Alarms bells were sounding in Emmett's head. "What do you mean, in case it all goes away, Edward?"

His brother ran his hands through his coppery hair. "I just mean…"

"Edward, if you're trying to persuade her to get rid of it…" Emmett near to growled at his brother, and for a moment there was a flicker of something not unlike fear in Edward's eyes.

He shook his head miserably. "I… I don't know what to do, I don't wanna lose her, I don't, I can't, **we **can't do this, and I'm terrified…"

Emmett remembered how Edward had been the first face he had seen when he had woken up in the hospital, and how calm and gentle his brother had been with him, how reassuring. He reached out and clasped his brother's arm, wordlessly. Edward flinched slightly, but then relaxed a little.

"I… I'm not ready to be a father, Emmett, and Bella-"

"Whatever happens, Edward, I'll help, Mom and Dad'll help, Charlie, Alice, _Rose…"_

Edward nodded bleakly. "I had a fight with Bella about it. I was scared, I suggested she consider g…getting rid of it. She… she went mad." He gave a half smile, remembering the girl he loved so much getting right up in his face and screaming at him until her white face was bright red. "She wants to go see a doctor, find out what was going on with the tests, but if… if she is gonna… have a baby, she wants to keep it…"

He gripped his brother's arm a little tighter. "You're just going to have to wait for those results, Edward, and then you'll have to stick by Bells and your child, whatever happens."

Edward's eyes were wide, black with fear.

* * *

After his brother had left the room, Emmett sunk back in his bed, onto his pillows, his head in his hands.

_What the hell were any of them going to do now?_

He had no idea. He knew how much his brother loved Bella Swan, there was no doubt about that, Edward had never been like this with any other girl, ever before. And he knew his brother, after he'd managed to conquer the fear, would come through for Bella and the baby, if it truly existed. But the whole thing would shake everything to the core – their family, their parents, the solid friendship the six of them had built up in the past months, everything would change…

A part of him felt guilty, even. He should have spoken to Edward, he should have made sure… _he knew it was ridiculous, but he was the oldest of them all. _He felt somehow responsible. And he was particularly fond of Bella, and would hate to see her leave Edward over it.

He was certain Edward would never leave her, but the girl was seventeen – a baby would ruin her life.

He ran his hands through his own hair. He needed to talk to Rosalie about it.

What he didn't know was that it would break her.

**A/N: Sorrysorrysorry. Sorry it's short, sorry it's fillerish, sorry it's LATE.**

**But life's really caught up this week, I'm afraid. My sister's not been very well – she's had a couple of panic attacks and I've been really worried about her. So I've kinda neglecting working on this story. Not to mention earlier in the week I wrote a oneshot called Up In Smoke, another AH AU Rose&Emmett fic, a Songfic to Kenny Chesney's There Goes My Life. Check it out, if you like :)**

**Anyway, review this, and I'll update Sunday. Same deal as always. I love you guys.**

**xx**


	23. Chapter 23

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter TwentyThree**

He didn't bother her that night, but the next day was Saturday. When he woke, late, as usual, Edward wasn't anywhere to be seen, and Alice and Jasper had gone down to La Push – presumably to the beach, although Emmett couldn't see any attraction in the beach at this time of year. Carlisle was headed off for three days on a medical convention in one of the country's leading hospitals in Seattle, and Esme had the all-day shift at Forks Hospital to cover for her husband being away, leaving Emmett alone in the house.

He dialled her number, not stopping to think that maybe it proved he had fallen too far in when he knew her number even better than he knew his own, without even having to stop to think before ringing it.

She picked up after four rings, as she always did.

"Emmett?"

"Hey, Rose." He said, and it was as if he was hearing himself from another person's perspective. His voice sounded heavy, troubled, something she didn't fail to pick up on.

"You ok?"

He took a deep breath. "Can you come over, sometime this morning? I… I guess I wanna talk to you about something…"

On the other end of the phone, Rosalie's breath hitched. It sounded serious.

_Please God, don't let him ask me what's going on in this relationship. I don't even know yet…_

"Are you ok, Emmett?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." His voice sounded more normal, jolly, jovial Emmett. That was better. "It's… it's Edward…"

_Edward. _There was one she hadn't been expecting. Comforted, knowing that the reason his tone was so troubled wasn't her – _for once, _a dark little voice in the back of her mind added, but she pushed it aside for now – she was more eager to go over there and spend her day with him.

"Sure, I'll come… I've just gotta finish the last paragraph of this American History Essay and then I'll be right over… is Edward ok?"

"He's all right… I'll tell you everything when you get here."

"Ok… I'll see you in about fifteen minutes, then?"

"Sounds great, Rose. Bye!"

"Bye."

The dialling tone was thick in her ear, but somehow something was amiss. Her conversations with Emmett always felt somehow… unfinished…

Like there was something more she wanted, _needed, _to say to him, but somehow she just couldn't. She sighed. There was no point thinking on it any longer. She'd finish her essay and head over to the Cullens'.

* * *

She let herself through the front door, with the key Esme had given her and Jasper in case of emergencies. Despite the situation, Emmett found himself smiling when he heard the door open and close behind her, and her quiet call of: "It's me." There was something incredibly intimate about her letting herself into his house as if it was completely normal.

She walked into his room, looking pristine as usual, though dressed only in jeans and a sweater. She gave him a small, worried smile and sat herself on his computer desk chair, a mirror image of the conversation he had had the previous night with his brother. _His brother, _and the reason he had called Rosalie over.

"You ok, Emmett? Is Edward ok?"

Emmett sighed, running his hands through his hair in some sort of nervous habit. She felt her pulse quicken – just a little. His eyebrows were furrowed and his eyes were dark and he looked the most… glowering she'd ever seen him, and it was, well, almost kind of _hot._

"Rose… you can't tell anyone this, he doesn't even want Mom and Dad to know, but Edward and Bella… are kinda in trouble."

She swallowed, and almost inconceivable feeling of foreboding spreading through her for some unknown reason.

"What?" she breathed, and her voice came out small, frightened and alone, a throwback to times before Forks, before him. She knew what was coming the split second before it did, but it didn't make it any easier.

"Bella might be pregnant. And she's not getting rid of it on any condition."

It was suddenly a smaller problem, now he'd told her. Suddenly it was conceivable; suddenly he could see them all managing it somehow.

Rosalie, however, was another story.

_Breathe, Rose. _It was a long time since she'd felt the need to say that to herself. He was always normally there, reassuring her simply by _being, _and she didn't need to force herself to breathe anymore – she wanted to breathe, to live, to be with him, to _love._

He watched her already porcelain skin turn white, and then faintly green. Her eyes didn't leave his, and they were both frozen for a moment, unable to think, breathe… he was waiting, weighting everything on her reaction, and she was trying to force the inevitable reaction down.

But she hadn't recovered enough yet. She would never have recovered enough to entirely quell these feelings, at least until she told someone, anyone, the whole truth. And she still couldn't even begin to envisage feeling strong enough to ever voice what had happened. And she could slow those feelings, the panic, the grief, the rage… but they were still rising inside her, taking the physical form of nausea, and that was when she broke her eyes away from Emmett's, and ran.

* * *

He hardly had time to think. She bolted from his room, and seconds later he heard the gut-wrenching sound of her heaving into the toilet. He swallowed, gritting his teeth, considering for a moment whether he should go after her or leave her be. Then, almost instantly, he felt guilty for even entertaining the notion that he shouldn't go after her. He knew, from the day he met her, what the deal was. And he'd made a promise to her that everything was going to be all right, eventually. And _leaving her be _would not make anything right, it was the coward's way out. The way out everyone else had taken, the way out that even Jasper took when the going got too tough. He wasn't going to be one of those people, one of those people who had, did, and always would let her down. So he followed her.

She was crouched on the floor in his bathroom; head bent over the toilet, hair streaked across her face and down her neck, empty stomach heaving. When he entered, sat on the edge of the bath and put a light hand on her shoulder, she looked up at him, and there were tear streaks across her face, and she was still sheet-pale. But despite all this, her eyes, the only untainted part of her face, were the hardest place to look. They had closed over again, as they had been the first time he'd looked into them, as she walked into his homeroom back in September. They were cold, hard, _frozen._

For a long moment they just stared at each other, tears running, shivering, off her face, waiting for the other one to speak. Rosalie was waiting for Emmett to decide this was enough, this was the end, he couldn't do this blind caretaking anymore, he was washing his hands of her. Emmett was waiting for Rosalie to completely shut him out, so he couldn't help anymore.

Stalemate.

Wordlessly, Emmett helped her over to the edge of the bath, bent her head gently over the edge, and lifted the shower head, gently, rinsing her hair through with the warm water, sinking his fingers lightly into the blonde waves, watching it turn darker with the weight of the water, watching the shaking of her shoulders slowly cease. He continued washing her hair, silently, massaging a little of Alice's tropical shampoo through it, grateful of her face being down so she couldn't see his tears, too. It was the last thing she needed, to see that she, being this broken – that was breaking him, too.

Rosalie felt her heart rate slowly as his hands gently massaged her scalp, something comforting about being sandwiched between his legs, feeling his hands on her head and the warm water mingling with her tears so they were no longer really there. She reached out and put one of her hand on his knee, the only thanks she could muster up.

After he was done, he towel dried her hair and wiped the makeup smudges away from under her eyes, all in silence. He moved to wrap her in his arms, but she took a tiny, subtle step away. _Not yet, _the voice inside her head screamed.

"Rose…" he started, sighing, and she noticed for the first time how red and _weary _his own eyes were.

She shook her head slowly. "Please don't ask me, Emmett. I… I can't… not yet."

He nodded grimly, his eyes not showing any emotion.

"I'm… I think I need to go home." She whispered. "I'm sorry. I… I'll see you on Monday."

He nodded again, and without hardly touching her, he leant forward and pressed a light kiss to her forehead. "Take care, Rose."

She looked at him hard for a moment, those unspoken things rising inside her again, those words that they both left unsaid, and then she left.

* * *

About an hour after Rosalie left, Emmett got a phone call.

"Emmett, it's Edward?"

"Hi."

"It's ok! It was a false alarm! Bella's not pregnant!"

He found it almost impossible to share in his brother's enthusiasm. He couldn't get the image of Rosalie's closed, empty eyes out of his head, like the picture of burned onto the back of his eyelids.

"That's great, Edward."

He hung up the phone, sat, alone, in his house – and cried.

**A/N: Sorry for the major angst overload, and I hope I didn't disappoint anyone with the way the Bella pregnancy thing turned out – it was just a plot device to reveal more of Rose – this is a RxEm fic, and Bella and Edward are pretty sidelined, it was my way of introducing pretty much the final part of the Rosalie enigma :)**

**Hope you liked it, anyway, next chapter I'm trying something a bit different – bringing a bit of Esme/Rosalie mother-daughterish type thing in there, and planning on filling in a little of Esme's backstory. But, to make up for this horrendous angst, the following chapter is going to be a giant pile of fluff.**

**Wait for it. And review.**


	24. Chapter 24

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter TwentyFour**

Emmett was quiet and miserable throughout dinner, and although Edward was too busy being overly cheerful – the perfect son again – talking to Alice and Carlisle, Esme took all of five minutes to realise there was something up with her son. Quietly, after dinner, when Edward had persuaded Alice to challenge him to a round on one of his video games, and Carlisle has gone to take the night shift at the hospital, she followed him up to his room, and walked in, closing the door silently behind her.

"Emmett, what happened?"

He looked at her for a moment, and she could almost see the cogs whirring behind his eyes as he decided what, and if, he should tell his mother.

"It's Rosalie." He whispered, in the end, and Esme felt a wave of gratitude for whatever made him at least give her that. She put her hand on her son's knee, briefly, and then looked into his face, forcing that comforting smile she had perfected in her eighteen years of motherhood. "I… I was talking about babies… and she… she just freaked, again… I don't know what-"

"Emmett, she's a very unhappy girl right now…"

His eyes were flashing. "Mom, I know. She hasn't told me anything, but I'm not stupid, I can work most of it out… I just… I don't know how to help her…"

Esme pulled her son into a hug. At first, Emmett stiffened, not wanting her comfort, but then he relaxed into her shoulder, burying his head and breathing in the soft, comforting scent of her flowery perfume.

* * *

She was in control, she was fine. That night had been hard, more difficult that ever, almost, and she hadn't got a wink of sleep, but today she was doing all right. She busied herself finishing off her essays due in the next day, and was then reading frantically through her notes, and her Shakespeare for English Literature, desperate for something mundane enough to take her mind off it all. Just something, anything, to stop the nausea rising again, and most of all the thought of Emmett's face as she turned away from him.

She'd never wanted to hurt him, after everything he'd done, but somehow, when he'd said those words, told her about Bella, he had suddenly become her enemy. And everything had risen up her throat and choked her again and she'd gone to pieces. But now, now she was calm, she was holding it off. Warily sinking back into what every other person took for granted, that air of self-control, something she didn't think she would ever quite get useful again.

She was so tense, she almost screamed when the doorbell rung, but managed to force it down at the last moment. She peered out of her window. She couldn't see through the little porch roof to who was standing at her door, but that was Esme Cullen's car on the driveway. She swallowed. She couldn't see Emmett, not right now. She wanted so much to tell him everything, let him help her, she really did, but she just physically _couldn't _talk about it. The words just wouldn't come. But when she was with Emmett she had a certain vulnerability that seemed to make it more likely she would talk. And she didn't want to talk. Because then she wouldn't be able to kid anyone, herself included, that she was forgetting about it all, and it wasn't as vivid as it was the day it happened, in the dim twilight in that back street… She sighed, brushed her hair off her face and tucked it behind her ears, and walked down the stairs to open the door, expecting chocolate eyes and dimples. Instead she was greeted by deep grey eyes and a sunshiny smile.

It _was _Esme.

"Rosalie." She said gently, taking in the girl's appearance. She really was a beauty, she would say that for her, and Esme could relate to that. And she knew, as well as anyone, how beauty could cross the line from blessing to curse without even the blink of an eye. Rosalie's eyes were still slightly red-rimmed, her hair a little tousled and frizzy where it had dried from wet the day before. She gave a weak smile, a false smile, a shadow of Esme's own personal smiling mask, and let her through the door.

"I'm not meaning to be any bother, Rosalie, I just…"

The mask tightened a little. "No, Mrs Cullen, it's fine. Come in and have a cup of coffee."

Esme nodded, taking her boots off and following Rosalie through to the kitchen. "Jasper not in?"

Rosalie shook her head. "I think he took Alice up to the tennis courts at the country club, actually. They went to a movie in Port Angeles yesterday, and when they came in he was talking about teaching her tennis."

Esme nodded. Of course she knew where Jasper was, he wasn't five feet away from her daughter at any point in time, but she needed an ice breaker, she needed small talk or something to make Rosalie relax.

Rosalie busied herself making the coffee whilst Esme sat herself down on one of the kitchen stools.

"Nice little place you've made for yourselves here, you and your brother." Esme smiled.

Rosalie chuckled. "I always like playing house when I was a little girl." She half-whispered, as if the happy memory was almost sacred. "I used to make Jasper be the dad, and he was suitably unimpressed."

"But he did it anyway?"

"Of course he did." Rosalie laughed, and for a moment her amusement and happiness were genuine. "I think… I used to be… the one in charge."

A silence fell as she poured out the coffee and handed Esme her cup. Then she sat on the other stool, sipping hers in silence, avoiding the older woman's gaze.

"Can I tell you a story?" Esme said quietly, and something in her tone made Rosalie look up. Esme's eyes were sad, and almost like… almost like she _understood._

She nodded slowly, unsure of what was coming next.

"I knew this girl once," Esme started, stirring her coffee, looking down at the kitchen counter, "And she was foolish and romantic, and when a boy looked her way more than once she fell in love with him – in the least meaningful sense of the word, Rosalie – and all she wanted was to keep her parents happy. So she got married, really young, when she was, well, only a year older than you are now, and at the time it seemed like the right decision." She took a deep breath, fixing her own smiling mask right over her features. "But the man she married wasn't everything he should have been. He wasn't a good husband, and he didn't – I don't think he was capable – he didn't love her. He… he used to hurt her, until she was afraid of going home for fear of what might happen behind closed doors…"

Esme watched Rosalie shudder slightly, and the girl's fists clenched on the table top.

"Anyway, she was too afraid of what he might do, and how disappointed her parents might be, to tell anyone. She just kept going, bearing it forever. She vowed that she would continue to endure it, and maybe one day it would stop, and he would be the charming young gentleman she married. Maybe he would love her again. That was all she ever asked for – to be loved."

"And did he?" Rosalie asked in a small voice.

"What do you think?" Esme spat bitterly, and the sudden menace in her voice shocked Rosalie. Her grey eyes were flashing and her face was suddenly snow-pale. "He… he just didn't see her as a human being, a person like him… and for one reason or another he couldn't seem to treat her right. But she clung onto threads of hope, and stayed there, more miserable every single day. Only a year into their marriage, he broke her leg pushing her down the stairs. She was rushed into hospital, and, embarrassed, almost, at her own weakness, I think, she told them all she'd fallen out of an apple tree in their garden. That was when her life started to get even more complicated…" she took another deep breath, and averted her gaze to look out of the window.

"Something changed in her when she met the doctor treating her. He was wall, handsome, gentle, and something in his eyes told her that… that he _knew. _She didn't need to say anything, and he didn't ask, he just handed her the phone in the doctor's office, with her husband waiting outside, playing the devoted lover, and told her that all it would take would be one phone call to the police. But she was too scared, too foolish, and although something about this doctor made her heart race and palms clam up, she turned away from the hospital and went home with her husband again, pretending nothing was wrong. That night, with a fresh black eye, she cried again, wishing she'd been brave enough to take that doctor's advice, and wishing she could see his kind blue eyes one more time.

"But she didn't, and life carried on as it had before, with blood and tears and screams making up her days. And then one day everything changed, because she found out she was pregnant." Esme didn't miss the way Rosalie's whole body tensed into action. "She could bear herself being hurt, but she wouldn't let anyone hurt this baby. She… I loved that baby, from the moment the doctor told… her she was having it. So the next day, when her husband was at work, she packed up her things and left him for good. But it didn't feel brave, it felt cowardly, and she was living in motels and off of friends, and she was still miserable."

Rosalie looked up, to see Esme's eyes glazed over with tears. "Anyway, to cut a long story short, she lost the baby about four months in, probably a mixture of her previous injuries from her husband, and how run down she was from life on the run. But anyway, she cracked. I… I just couldn't take it anymore, and I did some stupid things, Rosalie. I… I was brought into the hospital half dead, and who was treating me, but the wonderful doctor from two years before? And he helped me file for divorce without my husband ever hurting me again, and then we… we fell in love, simply, beautifully, within a few days. I… I'd come so close to the edge, I didn't see the point in waiting for anything anymore. So we were married, although I was… I still am hurting, Rose. I'll never stop hurting from the loss of my baby, but ten months into our marriage there was Emmett, and then Edward and Alice in quick succession." Tears ran, dripping, off Esme's face, and Rosalie's cheeks were streaked with her own quiet tears. "It doesn't ever go away completely, Rosalie. But you find… you find more, you find better… and it slowly fades into the background, so it hardly touches your mind anymore…"

Rosalie wiped her eyes roughly with her sleeve, shaking. "I… I can't seem to keep hold of more, though." She whispered, "I can't seem to stop pushing everyone away."

Esme wrapped her arms around the girl and stroked her hair gently, whilst Rosalie cried softly. "I don't think you could push my son away if you tried, sweetheart." She whispered, and she felt the younger girl's slight smile against her shoulder.

**A/N: It's SNOW DAY!!!! My college was closed; we've had so much snow! I went out sledging with all my friends this morning (and we may have crashed into a car and broken the number-plate :S) and then I came home and had cheese on toast and a nice cup of tea and was then like: oooooh, I'll go update Roses Behind Mirrors :)**

**Sorry for the little rambling there, hope you liked the chapter. I know it was angsty, but I wanted to unlock Esme for a bit. And her and Rose together – there's something incredibly interesting to write about going on there, and I got very caught up in it. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, please review, and if you're lucky you might even get another update today, or tomorrow morning if college is still closed *crosses fingers***

**xx**


	25. Chapter 25

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter TwentyFive**

"Merry Christmas!" Rosalie and Jasper chorused from the doorway, smiling. Emmett grinned. Rosalie looked adorable, even more so than usual, all wrapped up for the cold weather in a white woollen hat, scarf and gloves, her cheeks slightly tinged pink from the cold, cheeks he kissed as she walked through the door, a small but genuine smile on her face. They were ushered into the warm house, to the smell of Esme's cooking turkey, and to Alice throwing her arms around Jasper, laughing, wearing a little red Santa hat and elf shoes.

"Whoa!" he laughed as she caused him to stumble back a few steps into the front door. "Merry Christmas!"

Emmett and Rosalie gave them knowing smiles as they kissed lightly, and Emmett took Rosalie's coat, still grinning a little.

It had taken him a good long time to see that he needed to stop watching Alice and Jasper like a hawk. She was his sister, yes, but Jasper was also his friend, and after the way he trusted Emmett with Rosalie, surely it was the least he could do to put some faith in him when it came to not breaking Alice's heart? He would be ready to quiet literally pummel Jasper the moment anything happened to his sister, and it wasn't like he had stopped keeping one eye focused on her at all times – he just had a little more trust.

Edward came stalking down the stairs, after finally hanging up the phone. Bella was spending Christmas with her mother and father, and Edward wasn't impressed that he was the only one without anyone on Christmas Day. Esme wasn't quite ready to give up her son to the Swan family for Christmas lunch yet, but he was planning on trekking over through the snow as soon as they'd finished eating.

Emmett leant forward, brushing a strand of blonde off Rosalie's face, flashing her his dimples as she did so. There was something different about her today, her eyes were bright, alive – Emmett considered with a chuckle that maybe she'd been touched by a little Christmas magic and wouldn't be the usual damaged, frightened Rosalie just for the one day. He guided her through into their dining room with his hand resting lightly on the small of her back. It had been a week since Bella's pregnancy scare, and Rosalie's reaction to it. They hadn't talked about it since, but the day after Esme's visit Rosalie had phoned Emmett and they had talked over the phone, about anything and everything, just proving that they could mend the bridges, and both apologise, without actually saying a thing. She leant into his touch, feeling warmth spread through her. Today, of all days, she could pretend to be normal.

Esme's dinner was wonderful, and it was followed by plum pudding and mince pies, a real traditional Christmas. Edward made polite, if hasty, conversation for at least twenty minutes to make his mother happy before excusing himself and heading over to Bella's laughing, "Everyone's presents are under the tree!"

"Presents!" Alice had squealed, and that's how they had found themselves where they were now, Esme and Carlisle sat close on the sofa, and the two remaining Cullens and the Hale twins crouching around the Christmas tree, surrounded by each other's gifts. Alice had bought Jasper a couple of really nice shirts from some new designer she'd "discovered" in one of her regular back street boutiques in Port Angeles, and he had flushed bright red when he'd opened it, and mumbled his thanks, taking her hand. He'd bought her, with Rosalie's assistance, a little dark blue dress she'd had her eye on for months but could never justify buying.

All of a sudden, Carlisle and Esme's pagers went off simultaneously, creating some sort of dire harmony, ripping the Christmas fantasy away and bringing the pair of them back to reality. In an age old dance, they smiled wearily, apologised and said their goodbyes, and headed out to the hospital, ready to patch up whatever car crashes and carving knife injuries this Yuletide provided them with.

Rosalie smiled when she handed Emmett his present, looking down at her hands. It was a watch, not a particularly smart or expensive one, but a usual, leather strap, everyday watch. But there was something intimate about a present like that he could hardly put his finger on, even if it was just the way she turned shy when he opened it, and smiled almost incredulously when he told her he loved it.

He handed her her present with a dramatic flourish, grinning the whole time. Although he shrugged nonchalantly and told her he'd picked it up in the first shop he went into, in truth he'd spent a whole day of _shopping _to find it, with _Alice__. _If that didn't spell out devotion, nothing did. He'd struggled over earrings, clothes, necklaces, and then he'd found it. In one of Alice's little favourite boutiques actually, when he was completely despairing that he'd never find the appropriate present, and ready to kill himself over his sister's obsessive-compulsive shopping habits.

A little silver bracelet, a thin chain, with a clasp made from two silver roses.

She smiled when she snapped open the little box to reveal it.

"It's… it's beautiful, Emmett." She murmured, and he took the box from her, sliding the bracelet out, and when she offered him her pale, thin wrist, he fastened it gently around it, and for a moment, just a single, wonderful moment – they were the only two people in the room, cliché as it was.

Then he heard the sound of a throat clearing, and a voice, laced with cunning, laughter and excitement: "Look up."

Half knowing what would already be there; Emmett looked above his head, seeing the sprig of mistletoe Alice had placed there instantly. Rosalie looked up with him, and then their eyes met.

This was his responsibility. She was having such a good day. He couldn't let her crumble, not now.

"Alice, it's stupid, forget it."

His sister pouted, the stupid grin still on her face.

"Oh go on, Emm!" she laughed. He was looking everywhere but at Rosalie.

"Alice…" he said warningly.

Rosalie laughed a little, and he was forced to look at her, their eyes meeting, realising in that moment he was still holding her hand where he'd put the bracelet on. "Oh, come on, Emmett, it's Christmas!" she laughed, and she looked so _happy, _so _normal _in that moment that he couldn't have refused her anything, let alone a kiss. He smiled slightly and leant in, letting her come the last quarter of the way…

Their lips met, on the floor in their house, beside a Christmas tree, worlds away from their previous kiss, on a picnic blanket in the remnants of summer, but suddenly time fell away, and nothing seemed to exist but that feeling. Emmett put his arms gently around her and she threaded her fingers into his hair, leaning into him.

To Rosalie, it was everything – proving that she could be something other than the broken girl with the broken past, more than just the beauty that turned heads in the street. Proving that she could feel things she never thought she'd be capable of feeling.

To Emmett, it was everything – it was hope that he _could _help her after all, that she could be saved. That she might feel slightly the same way towards him as the giant feeling eating him up inside.

Neither of them noticed Alice and Jasper dart into the next room and watch _It's A Wonderful Life. _They broke apart slowly, faces flushed, lips swollen, both of them grinning like idiots. Maybe Rosalie had been touched by some sort of Christmas magic, because she rested her forehead against his gently, smiling, and whispered.

"I think I'm ready for this."

**A/N: Snow Day inspired me to write another chapter today! I know it's not Christmas, but that's where the timeline of the story came too, and when better to have fluff than Christmas? :)**

**Hope you liked it. Please review. Much love, on SNOW DAY (OK, so I'm a tad overexcited) **

**Emily**


	26. Chapter 26

**ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS**

**She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.**

**Chapter TwentySix**

"I… the plane's boarding now, Rose, I've gotta go…"

"Have a great time."

"I will, babe. Wish you were here."

He could almost see her shy smile, her slight blush. "Me too. I'll see you in a week!"

"I'll call when we get there!"

"Bye, Emm."

"Bye, Rose."

He hung up reluctantly. Alice was standing in front of him, hands on hips, glowering at him. "Come on, Emmett, we're going to be right at the back of the queue!"

"The plane won't take off any faster whether we're at the front or the back of the queue, Alice." He retorted in an irritating tone, but picked up his bags nonetheless, weighed down with all his ski gear and about three pairs of Alice's shoes she hadn't been able to fit into her own case. It was the first time in the history of, well, forever, that he hadn't been 100% ecstatic about the Cullen family's annual New Year ski trip, it was the first time he had something worth staying behind for.

Every year for as long as Emmett could remember, they had taken this holiday, the day after Boxing Day. It was his favourite holiday of the year, and as they'd been doing it their whole lives, the Cullen children (and their parents) were fantastic skiers. Edward was the fastest, Alice the most graceful and Emmett the most daring – sometimes too daring, at least in Esme's opinion, when he insisted on taking "just a little jump" off of the piste and through the woods to cut corners and reach the lift queue faster than his younger brother. And all three of them adored the holiday every year, with all the Christmas decorations still adorning the little French resort they frequented, and the massive ice party in their hotel every New Year…

But this year, even as subtly as it seemed, was so different. Edward was frantically texting Bella, a pained expression on his face as he was forced to put his cell away, to board. Alice was shifting from one foot to the other, looking slightly distracted. Just minutes before she had been considering what cologne to buy Jasper from the duty-free store. And Emmett… Emmett couldn't stand being away from Rosalie, if he was honest. And maybe that was a girly thing, and a little pathetic, and maybe it would fade with time but for heaven's sake… something had just started.

After the kiss on Christmas Day, things had moved, and although not quickly, at a much steadier speed and in a more direct route than before. They'd taken a walk, made some snow angels in the snow outside the Cullen's house, kissed gently as snowflakes fell around their ears and into her hair, and held hands all the way back up to the house, where they joined Alice and Jasper watching bad Christmas movies, cuddled up on the couch. Then the Hales had stayed over, planning on having Rosalie staying in Alice's room and Jasper sleeping in Edward's empty bed… but when Carlisle and Esme returned home in the early hours of the morning, exhausted from the usual, seasonal influx of patients in the ER, they found the four teenagers curled up on their sofa, the fire having burnt down to embers.

The next day he had and Rosalie and Alice had taken on Bella, Edward and Jasper in a snowball fight in the woods next to the Cullens' house, and then back into the house for Esme's best Boxing Day lunch. She didn't fail to notice how extra close Rosalie and Emmett stayed, the extra touches they reassured each other with, how she leant forward without an ounce of embarrassment and wiped a tiny speck of food off of the corner of his mouth, and then kissed him lightly, in full view of everyone. Then, Jasper and Rosalie had left, amidst deep, well-meant goodbyes, and the Cullens had packed for their trip.

And now, as they boarded the plane, Esme and Carlisle were both considering that as of this year, things changed.

* * *

"Ten…. Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three.. Two… One… HAPPY NEW YEAR!" they all shouted, and then Emmett found himself with Alice jumping into his arms, kissing him on the cheek, as his mother and father kissed gently, and Edward smiled beside them. Fireworks set off overhead, but he could only think of one thing, and that was who he had wanted to call the New Year in with, and that was Rose. Back in Forks, however, it was simply early evening, the next year being yet to curl that far around the globe. He broke away from Alice as she leapt onto Edward to give him the same treatment and dialled the all-too-familiar number.

"Emmett?"

"Hey, babe."

"Hi… is it-"

"Yeah, it's New Year over here."

"Happy New Year, babe." She whispered, and he felt a grin splitting his face.

Esme watched him with a slight smile on her lips, as she broke away from Carlisle's mouth, his arms staying fixed around her waist, tight and snug. Emmett's eyes were brighter than they had been all week, and he was shuffling his feet in an adorable, almost nervous way as he spoke to his new almost-girlfriend. Edward had had the same thought, and she watched his smile widen as he heard Bella's voice over the phone. Alice was tapping her foot with excited impatience, waiting for Jasper to answer.

That was the moment that it hit her. Her children, the three little dark-haired kids that had played tag in her front garden, they'd gone a long time ago, and it had taken her until now to see it. She wasn't mother to three children anymore, she was mother to two men and a beautiful young woman, and she couldn't be any prouder. She half laughed with her husband as their only daughter gave a little jump of joy at the sound of Jasper Hale's voice on the other end of the line, all the way back home.

But her happiness, her pride, it was all bittersweet, because, at the end of the day, it meant they were growing up, and growing up was simply paving the way for them to leave her eventually, move on with their lives, move out of her house… _that _almost didn't bear thinking about, the days when all those rooms would be empty of voices, empty of music, empty of smiles…

This moment defined it, though, and it suddenly became a finite reality to Esme Cullen that her children were going to grow up and love people more than they loved her… she didn't resent it, it was a rite of passage, a way of the world, but it hurt so much she felt the tears stinging her eyelids, a lump rising in her throat.

Carlisle, forever in tune with her, precisely, pressed a kiss to her left cheek bone and squeezed her hands tightly in his.

"They're happy." He whispered, and that, of everything was true.

"I… I'm losing signal, Emmett…"

"All right… I'll go… Happy New Year, Rose…"

"Happy New Year, Emmett, see you soon…"

"Rosalie.. I love you." He whispered as the signal cut out, unsure whether she'd heard him or not.

Carlisle gave Esme a knowing smile and pulled her into a dance.

* * *

Miles away, in a small town called Forks, a girl called Rosalie Hale was crying silent tears – but they were quite unlike any other tears she had ever cried. They were tears of quiet joy, mixed with a fair helping of hope, too, as she wondered when she'd ever have the courage to say it back to him.

**A/N: Sorry there was no update yesterday. Hope you like this chapter now, though. Snow day ended, but we might get more tonight/tomorrow. It's awesome!!!**

**Hope you're still all enjoying this fic, the reviewing has been better than I've ever had on any other fic! More than 300 reviews, guys! I'm so impressed! And a little gobsmacked, I must admit. Thank you so much.**

**xx**


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter TwentySeven**

It was good to be back in Forks, even if that meant back in high school with Christmas shrinking behind them, the innocent festivities distant for another year. It was the first time in his life Emmett Cullen was glad to come home, and though he saw no use in thinking on it much, he knew, as well as everyone else, that there was only one reason for his enthusiasm. She'd met him at the airport when they returned, a complete surprise, standing in the throngs of people at the arrivals gate, smiling shyly, Jasper by her side. He'd seen her, taken a moment to calm his heart, winked at her and hurried over.

Each kiss was better, more than the last. In the airport, in front of everyone, not only his family and her brother, but anyone who might have been looking their way, it was chaste and gentle, but it held some kind of promise that made him grin wider as her wrapped an arm around her waist, revelling in the feeling of warm, living, _smiling _Rosalie next to him, holding onto his hand tightly and not running for the hills because of his confession on New Year's Eve.

They went back to high school, and the change was even more noticeable. She walked through the halls with her arms around him, for the first time in so many months not worrying that people were staring, that people were whispering about her – because all their whispers were doing was pairing her with this boy who loved her, and nothing, it seemed, could make her happier. She kissed him goodbye outside every class they had different, she sat even closer to him around their lunch table, often with her fingers entwined with his on the table. It was simple, beautiful, and even begun to be bordering on _normal._

* * *

That day was like any other, they left each other in the parking lot.

"I'll speak to you later, babe." He whispered, kissing her gently. She felt the blush rising in her cheeks as Edward climbed into his Volvo with Bella, rolling his eyes at the pair of them. Alice and Jasper had said their brief goodbyes and were now sat in their respective passenger seats, drumming their fingers on the side of the cars impatiently.

"I'll call when I'm done with my Math homework, uh huh?" she whispered, threading her fingers into his short curls, smiling at him. He pouted, eyes twinkling.

"I come second to Math homework now, huh?"

She kissed him lightly again, planning to pull back straight away, but he caught her by the shoulders and deepened the kiss, tracing her teeth and roof of her mouth with his tongue, leaving her slightly weak in his arms, blushing and smiling. He finished it with a chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth, and pulled away, fingertips running through her hands for as long as they could, giving her a fully dimple-showing smile and then turning away and climbing into his car. Rosalie stood where she was for a moment, catching her breath, and then climbed into the car next to Jasper, who rolled his eyes.

"You two are sickening." He muttered, and she gave a little laugh, a sound that wouldn't ever have escaped from her mouth four or five months ago, before starting to drive the pair of them home.

* * *

The phone rang eleven times again, before diverting to voicemail. Emmett sighed. This was the fifth time, and Rosalie never failed to answer her cell, especially to him, and it was nearly eight o'clock – plenty of time for her to have finished her assignments in. He hung up on Rosalie's recorded answer phone message and dialled the Hale's home number. Jasper answered after three rings, and immediately Emmett noticed there was something wrong, something empty and bleak in his friend's voice.

"Can I speak to Rosalie, please?"

Jasper swallowed, creating a moment's empty silence on the phone. Then, when he answered, his voice was blank, mechanic, giving nothing away. "She's busy at the moment, Emmett; I guess you'll see her in school tomorrow."

Warning bells went off in Emmett Cullen's head. When had he become so paranoid? "What happened, Jasper? Is she ok?"

"She's fine, Emmett. Just… talk to her tomorrow."

"Do… do I need to come over there?"

"For once, Emmett, just stay out of it!" Jasper shouted suddenly, and Emmett was taken aback by the usually calm and quiet guy's tone. It was desperate, and something in it reminded him of a caged tiger's snarl.

"Sorry, I… just speak to her tomorrow, ok?" he said, sounding meeker now, but it was clear he wasn't going to offer up anymore information. "Trust me, Emmett; you're better off staying away – just for tonight."

Emmett felt the sense of dread and foreboding spreading through him, but he agreed to what Jasper wanted and hung up the phone, feeling strangely numb and powerless. Something was clearly up with Rose, and it made him sick to the stomach to think of how happy she'd been earlier, and how quickly that had changed. It was a reminder, of sorts, as to how fragile she still was.

Unsure of what to do now, he walked out of his room and down the stairs. Alice was watching the news, the words of the anchor drifted into his ears as he walked through their otherwise silent house: "… _the President offers no further comment. In other news, the five men arrested last month for the sexual assault and murder of Chelsea Waltham have been charged, four with five to ten years on accounts of rape and the fifth, Royce King Jr, heir to the King corporation in Rochester, New York, found guilty of her murder and sentenced to twenty to life. It is believed that these five men may also have been the perpetrators of a similar assault in NYC earlier last year, but there were never any charges brought against them. The political summit between the __USA__ and certain African nations has come to a head this afternoon with…"_

Alice was sat in front of the television screen, eyes blank and face even paler than usual. The newsreader moved onto a story about climate change, but Alice's face didn't move, shocked and slightly sick-looking.

"You ok, Alice?"

She didn't move for a second and then she looked at him, her eyes totally closed. His heart sunk, knowing in that moment that his sister was hiding something from him. "I'm fine."

There was no point arguing. He trusted Alice explicitly; he knew if she was keeping something from him she had every reason to, and she would tell him whenever that reason had expired, but he was getting to the end of his tether with all this – being kept in the dark. Being kept in the dark about Rosalie, now with Alice, Rosalie's reaction to the pregnancy scare, Jasper trying to push him out… he didn't understand how he was supposed to help any of them if they continued to shut him out. He clenched his fists, not prepared for a confrontation with his sister, and went back upstairs.

* * *

It was late at night when he heard his name being called from outside his window. He staggered out of bed, eyelids heavy from sleep, and saw her, wrapped up against the cold, standing below his window.

"Emmett!" Rosalie hissed, "Let me in!"

When he opened the front door to her and silently ushered her upstairs, if he noticed the tears tracks dried onto her face he didn't say anything. He simply led her into his room and closed the door.

"You ok-" he started, but she had no time for that. She wasn't even sure why she had come here, at all; she'd been half drowning in her own desperation when she'd decided there was only one person in the world she really wanted to see. So she'd sneaked out the back, leaving Jasper a note so he wouldn't worry – though she knew, in reality, he'd worry anyway, given what day it was and everything that had happened – and walked all the way to the Cullens.

She cut his words off with a kiss, a fierce, desperate kiss, trying to smother the feeling of horror and dread with the taste of him, and the safe feel of his arms encasing her.

"Don't ask me, please." She murmured between kisses, pulling her coat and boots off. "I… I just want to stay with you."

He felt his heart sink – there had been a moment where he'd thought he might be in for some answers, but he wrapped her in his arms anyway, and pulled them both under the covers, spooning his body around hers, and comforting her with his closeness.

**A/N: Hope you liked this chapter (I can't even seem to go one chapter without angst :L) and I'm sorry it wasn't up sooner. I've had a couple of crazy days and a Bones and a LOST episode to watch, so time's been scarce. For those of you that are getting impatient with Emmett not finding out what's happened exactly to Rosalie, I assure you it will come in good time, when it feels right to me. It's not that she doesn't want to tell him… it's more she can't, atm.**

**A special shoutout to everyone who's reviewed every single chapter – you know who you are, and I value your opinions so much, and am so flattered by all your praise. Thanks, and thank you to all reviewers, even if it's just one line. Every single review is appreciated greatly.**

**New update soon, maybe even today!!!**

**xx**


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter TwentyEight**

"Coming, Emmett!" she called, dashing down the stairs, fixing her last earring in and tousling her hair a little. For the first time in a long time she had consciously sat down and attempted to make herself look good, without feeling that sickening feeling that always came alongside it. She actually smiled at herself in the mirror, for the first time what seemed like years, and followed that by putting on makeup, for once not to mask everything, but to accentuate her beauty.

She stumbled over the bottom two steps, almost losing her balance as she staggered across the hall and opened the door. Emmett was standing there, dressed in a shirt she was sure Alice had picked out, clutching a big bunch of pink roses and smiling.

"Happy Valentines Day, babe." He said, and stepped into the doorway to catch her mouth with his, sending her pulse into ridiculous speeds, forcing a stupid grin onto her face.

"Happy Valentines Day yourself." She murmured as she played with his hair, kissing his cheek bone lightly. "You gonna tell me where we're going or is it some kind of secret?"

He smiled conspiratorially and then shrugged. "Edward recommended a place in Port Angeles; I thought we'd give it a go. And Esme's leant me the Mercedes soft-top, for the occasion."

Rosalie couldn't help grinning. Although her boyfriend didn't share her bizarre passion for cars, he was indulging her. She grinned, and pressed a chaste kiss to his top lip. "Let's go." She grinned.

They drove towards Port Angeles both with stupid smiles on their faces, grinning hopelessly at each other at every opportunity. Rosalie loved the car, and Emmett could tell Rosalie loved the car, and in truth – that was a bit of a turn-on. But he kept _those _thoughts to himself and when they drew up at the little secluded romantic restaurant in Port Angeles he had leapt out of his seat and round the car in time to hold the door open for her. She smiled demurely at him, taking his hand as he helped her out.

The restaurant was beautiful; they both had to hand it to Edward. It was quiet, and in an old building, the wooden rafters in the ceiling were adorned with Valentine's Day decorations – but the tasteful, not tacky kind, and there were roaring log fires and warm food, and Emmett smiling at her from the other side of their tiny table-for-two in the corner.

"So… a little bird told me that you gave Jasper **the talk **about Alice the other day."

Emmett rolled his eyes at her. "That is so unromantic, Rose."

She laughed. "Has Jasper given it back to you yet?"

Emmett looked everywhere but at her. "You and I… are special circumstances, Rosalie. And anyway… aren't you older than him?"

"By twenty minutes. Whatever. Anyway, what did Jasper say when you spoke to him?"

Emmett shrugged. "Not much. It was kinda awkward…"

Rosalie laughed lightly, and Emmett's heart warmed a little. He liked nothing better in the whole world than to make her laugh, he had decided, and on the various (once scarce and now more regular) occasions when he did, it sent an emotion through him quite unlike anything else.

Rosalie and Emmett ordered the same, and blushed and laughed when they both blurted it out to the waitress at the same time. He took her hand, running his thumb over her palm gently as they waited for the food to come, talking casually about things, gentle simple topics, school, Alice, Jasper, Edward and Bella, college, the future… and when they tucked into their meal there was a comfortable, warm silence spreading between them, their legs just touching underneath the table, their eyes meeting every few moments and smiles breaking out on their faces.

Whilst she was eating her spaghetti, without noticing, Emmett pulled out his camera and snapped a picture of her, laughing. She pouted at him, raising her eyebrows.

"Wow, I bet that's attractive." She rolled her eyes, and he looked down at it, laughing.

"It is, Rose. You're always beautiful."

She felt the blood rushing to her cheeks, the telltale sign of a blush, but she leant forward on one hand and looked at him, the sarcastic grin on her face making him laugh. "With spaghetti hanging out of my mouth."

"Always." He reinstated, waggling his own eyebrows. "The most beautiful thing I've ever seen." And in seconds, his voice had gone from light-hearted and joking to breathless and intense, looking her in the eyes. The blushing had long since fallen by the wayside, and for a fair few moments in the restaurant they were stuck, staring into each other's eyes, each renewing their captivation with the other.

They were interrupted by a waiter bringing them dessert menus, and both of them let out audible sighs.

Spell broken, for now.

* * *

He linked his arm through hers as they walked to the car, Rosalie feeling a little light headed from the wine and Emmett feeling a little light headed from all her laughing and her proximity to him. He opened the door, helped her in, closed it behind her and then got into the driver's seat to find her staring at him with a bizarre expression on her face.

"What?"

"Nothing." She shook her head, looking out of the window. "Thank you for tonight, Emmett, it's been lovely."

He grinned. "Glad you had fun." He whispered, and leant in to kiss her.

He never had any inappropriate intentions, he would swear on – God – his mother's life. Rosalie, however, seemed to have other ideas. As his lips made contact with hers, intending a light, loving, quick kiss, she immediately pulled him closer, tugging on the top of his shirt until he was leaning halfway across the car, with her sandwiched in between the window and his hard, muscled body. Only when she'd forced them both into that position did she wrap her arms around his neck, all the while deepening the kiss, her tongue warring against his, hands sliding up into his hair. He braced himself against the window with both hands, thinking if this was where she wanted to lead, then so be it…

_Think rationally, Emmett, you don't want to see her get hurt. _

It wasn't easy to think rationally when the one girl you loved had her tongue down your throat and you could feel every inch of her body pressed against yours, Emmett thought, but he pulled away gently, ever the gentleman.

"Rose…" he murmured, as she tugged at his bottom lip with her teeth.

"Emmett…" she mocked him, giggling as he nuzzled into her neck, but seemed to check himself right away and pull back.

"We… I shouldn't…"

She kissed him hard, he could almost hear the blood pumping in his ears and every inch of him seemed to tingle with desire and anticipation.

"I'm just having fun, Emmett. I'm not gonna break, y'know."

He knew it was the wine talking, and he knew she still _could _break at any moment, but right now her eyes were darkening and pleading with him at the same time, and she was so close he could feel her breath on his face, and her hands were sliding down out of his hair and running over the lean, sculpted planes of his chest, through the suddenly thin, irrelevant material of his shirt, and she was leaning in…

His lips caught hers again, this time in a dance far fierier. He managed to find an angle where he didn't have to brace the pair of them against the skeleton of the car, and finally threaded his huge hands into her beautiful, sweet smelling, amazing hair…

She was breathless, head spinning, as he kissed over her jawline and began a descending trail down her neck, kissing her gently, every touch of his mouth sending shivers down her spine. She thought of a time when even kissing him had been scary and found herself smiling as she yanked his head back up again, to meet his mouth, to feel his tongue running across her teeth, to lose herself in him…

"I love you." He whispered in her ear, and punctuated that announcement with a kiss. Then he moved his mouth quickly back to hers again, as if reassuring her she didn't have to respond to that sentence until she was ready. And, she was beginning to think, she would ready sooner than they both thought.

A good fifteen minutes passed, and she had her hands under his cotton shirt, tracing the muscles of his stomach and chest, and he had found the spot on her neck that he could kiss and make her elicit small moans, which made his heart thunder in his chest. Slowly, breathlessly, he pulled back, kissing her on the forehead lightly and smoothing her tousled hair down.

"I should take you home." He murmured, wishing that wasn't the right thing to do, but it was. She gave him small, grateful smile, and held his hand as he drove them both back to Forks.

Just before he was about to turn off to drop her home, she stopped him.

"Can I stay at yours?" she asked, eyes bright and hopeful, and with that look, he didn't have the heart to say no.

She ended up sleeping in his bed, wearing one of his old T-shirts, her head resting on his chest, sleeping soundly.

**A/N: Hope you liked the Valentine's Day chapter!!!!! I'm well proud of myself, hardly any angst escaped at all, and I think I succeeded at fluff ;)**

**Let me know what you think, and review!!!!! (come on, you at least owe we that, after TWO updates in ONE DAY!!!)**

**Off to watch The Italian Job now :) [I love Mark Wahlberg soso much :D]**

**xx**


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter TwentyNine**

The date was March 13th, and a year had gone by so fast.

When she woke up that morning, the dread began to spread.

It was _that _day, that day all over again, and although so much time had passed there was nothing she could do to stop the emotions rising in her, not today.

Jasper didn't help, although he was trying. He brought her breakfast (burnt toast and bizarre tasting butter) in bed like some sort of invalid, and said he'd make excuses for her if she 'didn't want to leave the house today.'

Rosalie wanted to punch him, to make him stop with the sympathetic eyes and the empathetic smiles. He didn't have a clue how terrible this day was going to be for her, he couldn't begin to understand. And… after a whole year, he didn't seem to understand that she didn't want him to baby her. She wanted to somehow regain some independence, some self respect, and Jasper, hell, anyone except for Emmett, they couldn't seem to see that sometimes she needed to battle it out alone. She was cold in response to his suggestion, and assured him that she would be absolutely fine to go to the Cullens' for dinner that night.

Inside, her heart was racing, and not with anticipation, as it usually was at the thought of seeing Emmett. With disgust, and fear… she could _feel _those hands again, really feel them all over her… and inside she was filled with cold.

* * *

It was like the months she'd spent in Forks had evaporated, as she masked her face in makeup once more and kept telling herself those age-old, useless reassurances…

_Breathe, Rose, breathe._

It was like none of it had really happened, Emmett hadn't happened, the arrests hadn't happened, nothing had changed since the day she stumbled home, bloody, bruised and forever broken…

_Breathe, in and out. You're better than this._

It was like he could still come from around any corner, ambush her and finally finish what he started. Like they had with Chelsea…

She couldn't be thinking about that now. That wasn't her. She'd escaped, she'd survived.

Emmett _loved _her. She, maybe, was beginning to learn to love him back. And if she didn't go spiralling back down into this mess then maybe one day she could tell him that, maybe one day she could be more to him, maybe they could have forever…

_There's no such thing as forever, not for you. You're damaged goods._

Tears were tracking down her face again, but she wiped them away fiercely. Jasper couldn't see. Carlisle couldn't see, because she knew the word 'psychiatrist' would come out of his mouth, and she couldn't have that…

She smudged more makeup over it, covering it.

With enough, she could bury it so deep that even she couldn't access it. Keep on burying it deeper and deeper and one day it would be the stuff of legend, a mystery, something that could never be found.

Until people started to dig.

* * *

Emmett greeted her with a kiss, as always, and he noticed no change, mainly because he was smiling widely at his brother – it was Edward's eighteenth birthday. He had his hand on the small of her back as he guided her through to the dining room, where Esme had laid food out for all of them, and was smiling through the kitchen-hatch, the perfect mother, head of her home.

To Rosalie, who'd forced herself into some sort of dreamlike state, everything was perfect to a degree of surrealism. Esme folding her apron in the kitchen and walking through to take her place at one end of the table, Carlisle, from his opposite end, pouring out glasses of champagne and smiling at his son, now a man. Edward, with the big goofy birthday badge forced onto him by his brother and sister, Bella beside him, her hand in his. Alice and Jasper, sitting opposite each other, either side of Carlisle, making eyes across the table, a slight pink hue to Alice's cheeks. And Emmett, sat at the far end beside his mother, grinning that loving, dimple-cheeked grin at her and patting the seat next to him, in between him and her brother.

A perfect, untroubled family.

And she was suddenly caught by the notion that she _didn't fit. _She didn't fit here, she didn't fit anywhere where people could be happy and smile and laugh and celebrate birthdays. She didn't fit where someone _loved _her, someone she couldn't even bring herself to tell about her past. She didn't fit here, making her brother constantly on edge when he was finally beginning to forge his own way and find a sort of happiness in the world she had labelled for him as bleak and unfriendly.

She tried to move, to sit beside Emmett, stay quiet and not ruin this for Edward, who, despite his first frosty exterior, she had come to care for with the same affection one holds for an irritating younger sibling. But suddenly her legs were frozen to the floor, her eyes were locked upon Emmett's smiling face, and she physically _could not _move a muscle. It was as if she had finally cracked, and turned to stone.

It was the realisation that had done it. The memories didn't matter, the pain didn't matter. She brought only suffering and damage to this perfect family. Where Jasper had filled a gap, made Alice happy, she was only a burden to Emmett, she only made a gaping hole larger because she wasn't what he needed – someone happy, beautiful, loving, whole, warm…

And she turned on her heel and ran.

* * *

He hadn't seen it coming, he'd been too preoccupied in the Edward situation, and since Valentine's Day, Rosalie had seemed happy pretty much all of the time. In hindsight, maybe he had been luring himself into a false sense of security, but he really had thought that something had changed, that she was getting better, that maybe they could just brush everything under the mat and be _normal, _and one day, in many years to come, she would tell him, offhand, when the moment was right, and however horrific the whole thing was he could simply hold her and make it all better.

He shocked himself there, for a moment, when he realised that he saw the future, clear as anything, _in many years to come, _with Rosalie by his side. He saw himself a life with her, the other details were hazy, but he realised he couldn't imagine his life without her.

But he had more pressing matters to deal with, in the moment, because she'd bolted. He'd through everything was fine, he'd thought this would be just another simple family gathering, where they laughed and made jokes and held hands under the table, and kissed a little on the chair swing in the back garden afterwards, providing an excuse for Rosalie to stay the night, simply encased in his arms until her breathing slowed and her eyes fluttered shut.

But it seemed fate had other ideas, and she'd gone from seeming absolutely fine – he realised with a sinking heart she was better at hiding things from him than he'd anticipated – to running, without a backwards glance, the fear flashing in her eyes again, fear he hadn't seen for months.

He got up quickly, his chair falling backwards against the wall, calling her name in protest. Jasper looked at him, his eyes bleak.

"Don't tell me not to go after her." Emmett said, his voice hard, metallic, his jaw set.

Jasper merely shook his head, as if conceding some sort of defeat, at last, almost as if he was finally handing over the responsibility of caring for, loving Rosalie, to the eldest Cullen boy. Emmett hardly waited for Jasper's response; he was out the front door and running down the drive way as fast as he could, where Rosalie was putting the M3 convertible into gear.

He ran out in front of the car, preventing her from moving anywhere. She looked up at him through tear stained eyes.

"Leave me alone, Emmett."

"Why?"

She shook her head in desperation, "I… I don't fit in here… you could do so much better than me… let me go…"

He ran his hands through his hair, exasperated, and then clenched his fists at his sides. "I promised myself I would never ask you this, Rose, but what the hell happened to you? How am I supposed to help you if you just keep… shutting me out? I'm… I'm not gonna judge you, and it's not gonna change the way I see you. It's your past Rose, and I… I wanna be your future… but I… it's gone on too long. I have to know."

Tears ran, shivering, off her face, and for a long moment she said nothing. He seemed to think over his outburst in his head, and looked at her meekly.

"I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

"Why?" she whispered, in a tiny voice.

"What?"

"Why do you care?"

He took a deep breath, leaning forward on the bonnet of the car, sighing, and matching his eyes to hers, chocolate brown to violet blue.

"Because I love you." He said, and then repeated it louder. "I love you."

She shook her head for a moment, and then her eyes went cold. "I'm sorry, Emmett. We can't be together. Please let me go."

Stunned at her reaction, despite everything having expected some sort of answers, some sort of compromise after all that; he stepped away from the car.

"Don't go, Rose." He murmured, but even to him his voice sounded pathetic and listless. "We can sort this out. I love you."

There were tears building in his eyes, and they broke her heart more than she was already shattering it herself by leaving him. "I'm leaving, Emmett. I'm sorry."

"This is just a stupid fight." He said through gritted teeth, "Everyone fights. I'll see you tomorrow; we'll be ok, right?"

She shook her head, not even bothering to wipe the tears away. "I can't see you again, Emmett. I have to go."

She put the M3 into gear and drove away, leaving him standing there, in his huge paved driveway, crying properly for the first time in his life.

**A/N: Sorry for the angst overload, but regardless, I'm rather proud of this chapter, and I have a feeling the next one's gonna be a biggie. ;) I have big plans for Emmett and Rosalie from here. Please review, let me know what you think. If you're especially nice, I might update again today, it being the weekend and all. :D**

**The Italian Job was good, again. I think I have a strange obsession with Charlie Croker's arms though. Kinda like Emmett's arms… :)**

**Thanks for your continued support and reviewing, guys**

**xx**


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter Thirty (guys, that's a big number :D)**

Jasper Hale's heart was racing like it never had done before. He should have been more insistent, he shouldn't have let Rosalie out today, but… but he'd really wanted to believe that she was getting better, that everything was changing for them all. That one day she would be able to put it all behind her and be completely happy, without conditions. But seeing her face she'd bolted from the Cullens' dining room – it was as if all the progress that they had all made with her, mainly Emmett, of course, had disappeared.

And then he'd seen Emmett's face when he'd staggered back in, and heard the words on his lips, shuddering out: "She's gone."

Alice had rushed to put her arms around her brother, but he had shrugged them off, and sat on a chair, staring blankly. In all the twelve months since it had happened, Jasper had seen the despair and pain in Rosalie's eyes almost every day, and he had seen nothing to rival the look in the eyes of the man who loved her, right now.

It was Carlisle and Edward, in the end, who held everyone together, and sent Jasper and Alice to drive back to the Hale's house to try and locate Rosalie. Edward and Carlisle had sped off in the Mercedes, as well, planning to drive around the streets of Forks until they found her. Bella had started home in her truck, to warn her father, knowing that if they couldn't find Rosalie in twenty four hours she would be alerted as a missing person and the police would get involved. As it was, Charlie Swan offered to help immediately.

Jasper drew up to their house, not feeling even the slightest ounce of surprise at not seeing Rosalie's car there. Alice hopped out, darted in the front door and checked the house quickly, coming out within minutes, shaking her head. He took a deep breath and tried to say something, but all the words were choked up in his throat.

"Jasper, it's not your fault…" Alice whispered, sliding into the seat next to him and wrapping her arms around him, "There's nothing you could have done…"

He pulled her closer, only for a moment, breathing in her warm, slightly spicy scent and reassuring himself at the feel of her tiny, lithe body in his arms. But today, just Alice wasn't enough.

* * *

"Ok… come straight back here, Alice… he's… he's not doing too well… don't let Jasper panic, love… Edward and your father are still looking… see you in a minute." Esme hung up the phone to her daughter, sighing, and looked across at her eldest son. He had his jaw and fists clenched, but other than that he hadn't moved since the moment he had collapsed into the chair, having announced Rosalie's departure. Esme was panicking herself, knowing the gist of what terrible things had happened to Rosalie, and how she herself had reacted to everything that had happened in her younger years, but she would never show it. She knew that Emmett needed to keep as much of a level head as possible in this circumstance, in case Rosalie returned and needed him, and she wasn't going to fuel his fear and worry. She hugged her son tightly, trying not to allow it to hurt her when he didn't respond. She wasn't what he needed right now, anymore, ever… he needed Rosalie, and Rosalie was gone.

Jasper and Alice came bursting through the front door, running into the dining room where Esme and Emmett were. Alice walked towards Emmett slowly, her big dark eyes sad, and simply put her hand over his. Jasper turned to Esme.

"Any news?"

Esme shook her head solemnly. "Nothing." She murmured, wishing something, or someone would prove her wrong. She looked at Jasper, standing in front of her, his blue eyes full of guilt and regret, his skin paler than usual. And she wrapped him in her arms and held him tightly, mainly because she couldn't seem to make her son feel any better, and secondly because she got the feeling Jasper Hale had forgotten what it felt like to be loved by a mother. He relaxed into her arms for only a second, before pulling away, his forehead furrowed, the pain evident in his face somehow dulled.

"We'll find her, Jasper." Esme said, squeezing the boy by the shoulders one last time and then pulling away. She tried not to choke up herself when she noticed Alice's eyes filling with tears.

Her phone rang, breaking the moment.

"Hello?"

"It's Carlisle. We've found Rosalie's car, on the road next to the woods, about a mile from the house. We don't know where she's gone from there, we're following the road along, seeing if she got out and walked… we can't search for her in the woods, love, they're too big… we'd just get ourselves lost…"

"It's ok, Carlisle. I'll… I'll see if anyone knows where she might be. You keep looking. Love you."

"Love you too."

She turned to Emmett as she hung up the phone.

"She's about a mile down the road to the woods. She's… she's probably in the forest…"

Emmett shook his head sadly. "She doesn't want me to find her, Mom. She never wants to see me again."

Jasper crouched in front of Emmett, Alice not letting go of her brother's hand.

"Emmett, you know her better than any of us do, even me. Where… where might she have gone?"

Something flickered behind Emmett's eyes, but he said nothing.

"And you are the one she wants to find her. She's scared, that's all, she's terrified, but… but she… she loves you, and I think… I think you're the only one left who can help her now."

Emmett met his friend's eyes, bleak desperation slowly moulding into hope.

"By the school." He whispered, "I'll take the Jeep."

And then he was gone, running out of the door.

* * *

He walked up through the woods, half running, wondering whether to call out her name or not, checking over and over in his mind, making sure he was following the same route he had been the first day he had run after Rosalie Hale through the woods, the first day he'd ever met her, and clichéd as it might sound, the day his life was changed.

And there she was, as she had been all those months before, sat with her back against a tree, maybe even the very same tree, hugging her knees to her chest and sobbing her heart out.

He stopped in his tracks, after everything, unsure of what to say to her. She seemed to sense his presence, and looked up slowly, her face red and stained with her own tears, her eyes wide and violet.

He took a couple of steps forward, and cleared his throat.

"Rose, just hear me out." He took a deep breath, but the fact that her eyes were still locked with his was a good sign. "I shouldn't have said what I did. I don't need to know what happened to you… I just need you. I love you, and I was just trying to help and I got it all wrong and I'm so sorry…" he took a step closer, and crouched down in front of her, levelling his face with hers. "I don't want a life without you in it, Rosalie Hale… but if that's what you want, I'm gonna have to learn to deal with it… but I just thought… I thought we could have something, we could be great together…"

He trailed off, running out of words to express his emotions. She stared at him for a long moment and then wrapped her arms around him gently, pulling him towards her, cradling him in her arms, wordlessly, on the cold leafy floor of the forest.

When she pulled back, she pressed a kiss to the side of his mouth, her eyes full to the brim and spilling over with unsaid things.

"I want to tell you what happened to me." She whispered.

He shook his head. "You don't have to… Why, Rose? If it hurts so much?"

Her smile was slight, but it was there. "Because I love you too."

**A/N: Not much to say here. Review!**

**xx**


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter ThirtyOne**

"It was exactly one year ago, and I wasn't the same person I am now…"

_I was shallow, I was vain… I was the prettiest girl in my high school, the prettiest girl in my town, and I knew it. Jasper and my parents loved me, yes, but I'm not sure they even liked me, and I had few real friends. It was… it was difficult, you see, being that beautiful from such a young age, and people had been forever telling me it… I somehow became saturated with that knowledge until I could no longer deny it in any kind of modesty. I am not proud of what I was like, back then._

_There was a guy, his name was… Royce King and he was the richest person I knew. We weren't badly off, but the Kings owned some huge corporation and haw twelve houses, and Royce was their eldest son. He was also captain of the football team, student body president… right at the top of the pecking order. And he was well known for being aloof and above everyone else – he had rejected more than half of my friends, and we… were the popular crowd._

_It started off as a bet between me and the girl who was probably my only true friend, Vera. She didn't go to my high school, which, in retrospect, was good because she would have seen how awful I was there. But she'd still heard of Royce King, everyone had, and she bet me even I couldn't get him to take me out. I… I was mad at her. I felt like she was questioning my beauty, and the truth is, Emmett, it was the only thing I had. I wasn't stupid, no, but it wasn't… studying hard wasn't what my friends and I did. I was so shallow back then._

_Anyway, it wasn't hard… I flirted with Royce and he was handsome, Emmett, blonde and tanned with these pale blue eyes… and he fell for it. And within a matter of days we were dating. It was… I enjoyed the power over people it gave me - that was the sort of girl I was. Not only was I the prettiest, but I was now with the most popular, the richest boy in the school. I was the envy of all my friends, of the whole of __Rochester__ High, and I loved that. You… you wouldn't understand, you haven't got anything like that in you… I don't deserve you…_

_Anyway, one night I went over to see Vera – she'd made a mistake, she'd ended up pregnant, and she'd just had her little baby, a little boy, Henry. I was a different person when I was with Vera, she didn't admire my looks or my rich, posh boyfriend, or my designer clothes… she wasn't that girl… and I was somehow more myself with her than I ever was with anyone else, Royce included. To him I was just a bit of arm-candy, something to look pretty… I was walking home from Vera's that night, and I ran into them._

_Royce, and four other guys from the football team. They'd been drinking, they stunk of alcohol… I still can't bear the smell. I was… I wanted to spite my parents for not allowing me the new car I wanted, so I decided to approach them, hoping I could turn up home later or something, smelling like drink and driving the pair of them mad. I… God, I sound awful… that's what I was like._

_But, although Royce never came across as a particularly nice guy, he was completely changed that night. His eyes were poisonous, and all of it happened so quickly. One of his friends hit me over the head, I'm still not sure whether they noticed it was me, whether I was just a random victim, or Royce couldn't… couldn't wait…_

_I hadn't slept with him, I wasn't like that. I had self-respect, even if I had no humility. The hit over the head… that's where the scar I showed you came from… and when I came to I was bleeding, laid on the floor, and my clothes... my clothes were ripped to shreds, torn around me… and all I could see was Royce, positioning himself above me…_

_I… he was so heavy, I couldn't breathe, and he let out… he let out this awful groan… and it hurt… so much, Emmett. _

_And he was only the first. The other four had their turn, and all I could do was close my eyes and wait, wait for it to be over… and I thought when the last one climbed up it would be… but Royce came back, and I couldn't help myself from crying out, Emmett, I wasn't sure I could take any more of it without just… dying, and he… he called me a bitch and a slut and other horrible, horrible things, and then something was glinting, and I think it was a knife and I think…_

_Anyway, someone came walking by, and they ran, leaving me lying there. After I saw it on the news, what happened to Chelsea Waltham, I figured that had someone not come walking by at that moment they probably… they probably would have killed me too. _

_I don't know how long I laid there for. It could have been hours, could have been minutes. I don't remember much about how I got home, the next thing I remember clearly is jolting awake, from… from the first nightmare, lying on my bathroom floor. Jasper found me there, and he… he half guessed from the state of my clothing what had happened, and I managed to blurt out the names to him, though I was sick until there was nothing left inside me and I was simply retching._

_He's kind-hearted, Jasper, and he believes everyone else is. He wanted to tell my parents, unsure what to do on his own, and I think… I think he was a little bit afraid of what he himself might do to Royce and the others. But… I wasn't the shallow bitch I was for no reason, Emmett; I was the image of my mother, and I didn't want to give her even more reason to look down on me. I burned the ruined clothes I had been wearing and set about pretending there was nothing wrong._

_Royce and the others weren't in school anymore, they'd all left on study leave, so I didn't have to see them, day to day. I tried school, I think once or twice, and the rest of the time I skipped it, hanging out at home, in the park, away from… people, in general. I… I couldn't seem to face anyone back then, anyone at all._

_Don't give me that look, I've seen it before. I… I can't really explain to you why I didn't report it, why I didn't want anyone else to know. I… I guess I thought if it was never mentioned again it might go away… completely disappear… but I was wrong. I… I became more and more alone, more and more wrapped up in myself… until about two months after it all happened when I realised…_

_I… don't freak on me, Emmett, please, just listen… I was pregnant._

_It was horrible, thinking that a part of one of them was still inside of me, and no matter how many washes I gave myself, I could never get it out… I didn't tell a soul, Emmett, never planned on it either, and I checked myself in for an abortion._

_I… I was surprised at how calmly I handled all of that, actually. I was cold, calculated… I didn't struggle through it at all. It was when I got home, and found my parents sitting on the sofa waiting for me, my mother clutching the pregnancy test I'd been too disgusted, too panicked to hide, that everything started to crash around me, for real. My…my mother screamed at me, calling me a slut and a whore, and saying she wanted me out of the house... I calmly assured her it was all taken care of, and locked myself in my bathroom._

_I know I'm sounding very calm and detached here, but I can't connect, not with those times, or I really will break, and you won't even be able to start putting me back together, the pieces will be so small. I… that night I tried to kill myself, and please don't ask me anything about it, because the memories are hazy. I remember a razor blade, and a bath full of warm water… and then I remember waking up in a hospital. Jasper had told my parents, and they were everything they should have been, loving, apologetic, supportive, but in my mind they hadn't been their when I needed them, they hadn't seen the truth for looking, and somehow all my trust in them was gone…_

_I was in the psych ward for three weeks, but I'm… I'm very good at pretending I'm fine. When I got home, there were already plans for Jasper and I to move out, to finish our final year of high school in another town, to leave NYC for as long as possible._

_I should have been grateful, maybe, should have been relieved that I would be getting away from **him, **but I didn't really feel it possibly to feel anything, back then. I… I started having nightmares about the baby, too. It was crying, and I couldn't find it… I couldn't find it, Emmett…_

"…and then we moved here. That's all." She tried to keep a straight, passive face as she spoke, but as silence spread between them her face crumpled and she fell forward into his arms, sobbing and shaking.

Her straight-to-the-point, matter of fact delivery of her story had hurt him more than her tears could… because she… she still seemed to be blaming herself; she still seemed to be alone in her memories, not reaching out to him until the memories were over.

But he was holding her now, surely that was what mattered.

When she finally pulled out of the hug, angry tears were dashing off his own face as well, and their eyes locked for a moment, desperate and in pain… but with some sort of… hope.

"I love you." He murmured, not knowing what else he could do to make her feel anything ever again, and although he would never know it, it did help her. She buried her face in his neck again, and he lowered his head, breathing in the scent of her hair, holding her tightly.

"I… I'm never gonna let anyone hurt you…" he whispered, and he felt the indent of her small smile in his shoulder. She looked up, brown meeting blue.

"I… I know." She murmured, and she _did _know. She had absolute faith and trust in him, as lover, as protector, as confidante…

"Come on, I'll take you home." He said, scooping her up into his arms in one fluid, effortless movement, holding her tightly. She looked at him for a moment as he trudged down the hill, back towards the road, holding her as if she weighed no more than a baby.

"Can… can I stay with you tonight?" she murmured.

"Maybe… maybe you'd be better off at home with Jasper…" he whispered, loathe to, but fearing she would begin to feel suffocated.

"But… the only place I don't have nightmares is in your arms."

**A/N: Flipping heck, I am on a roll today! I guess it's cos I'm desperate to finish this before I go skiing, and even though I know I won't, I'm trying my very best!!!!**

**Hope you liked Rosalie's story anyway, and the way she told it… it was pretty dang hard to write. Please leave me a review.**

**xx**


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter ThirtyTwo**

"Triple chocolate mocha latte, courtesy of Alice and the coffee maker I bought for her birthday." Emmett smiled, setting one down on the carpet in his room next to where Rosalie was sat, and sliding down beside her, back resting against his bed, notes strewn out over the floor, Rosalie's side in various colour codes and highlighted within an inch of their lives, Emmett's scarce, scrappy bits of paper. He leant his head back on his mattress, taking a long sip of his own latte, and shuffled a little closer to her, making her smile.

"Thanks." She smiled, sipping her coffee and then setting it well out of reach. Emmett mirrored her action and stretched casually, a playful grin on his face, his arms reaching up and then curling around her, pulling her tightly to him.

Months ago, he'd had known not to do it, because she would have jumped out of her skin. But now she snuggled into his arm, smiling a little wider when he pressed a kiss to her temple, and then one to her cheekbone, and then to her mouth…

She put a finger to his lips, her eyes sparkling but her face mock-serious.

"You are never going to pass these exams if we don't revise, Emm." She teased, "So less of that, and more work."

He kissed her again, briefly, hungrily, and muttering something under his breath, pulled away and picked up a set of notes. She bit her lip absent-mindedly, watching him.

"What are you staring at?" he asked, off hand, not even looking up from his work.

"I wasn't-"

He looked up at her from where he was now sprawled on his front on the floor beside her, playful dimples gracing his face. "Come off it, Rose, you were staring. Transfixed by my rugged good looks…"

She shoved him gently, and he feigned pained, making big, wide, sad eyes at her. She groaned.

"You're such a baby!" but she was laughing, and that was his sole purpose. He'd once thought to himself that he could make her laugh, just once every day, he'd been happy – and that had become his mission, every single day since she'd opened her soul to him, letting him in, letting him know everything, he vowed to keep her laughing.

They worked in companionable silence, Emmett occasionally tracing circles on her thigh with his finger, Rosalie sometimes tousling his growing hair, scratching the scalp slightly, relaxingly, with her long red nails. After an hour or two, Emmett tossed the notes aside and rolled onto his back, looking up and her. She took this as a sign to take a break, and set her notes down beside her.

"You thought anymore about what you're gonna do after we graduate, Rose?" he was probing, but lightly, so as not to bother her.

She started to say something, but then stopped herself, and shrugged. "Not.. not really… I thought maybe… no, it's stupid."

He frowned. "I doubt it's stupid."

She shrugged. "I… I guess I thought maybe I'd do psychology somewhere… and I thought maybe I'd… if I was good enough… maybe I'd be a shrink, to… to help girls like me…"

He had to swallow hard to force the next smile. "That's not stupid, at all. That's…" he trailed off, simply taking her hand in his.

"What about you?" she said brightly, the dark look in her eyes fading, "Still Chemistry, still Yale?"

_This is it, Emmett. This is the commitment. _"Ah, I dunno." He said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. "Nothing's definite yet. I… Rose, I'm going wherever you're going…"

"Don't be ridiculous! You didn't know me this time last year, you can't… you can't decide on your college education depending on me…"

He shrugged again, a defiant look in his dark eyes. "You're not changing my mind, Rose, I'm not leaving you."

She shook her head. "It wouldn't be leaving me, Emm. You'd just…" she trailed off, giving him an exasperated sigh, "Emmett, I… you can't change your future just worrying about me…"

He gave a small smile, as if he understood the immensity of what he was saying, and he didn't mind it one bit. "You… I don't think you have any idea how much you mean to me, and… I don't want to be away from you…"

She gave him a crooked smile, and shifted her weight so she was leaning over him, hands by his torso. "I love you too, and you're a sap, you know that?"

He laughed, "It's what you've done to me, woman…" he muttered, before leaning up, muscles straining in his neck as he did so, and kissing her square on the mouth. "Anyway, I'm sure they have a Psychology programme at Yale."

* * *

"I think about her a lot, you know." Rosalie whispered. They were sat on the swing seat in the Cullen's garden, and the cool spring evening was comforting.

"Who?"

"Chelsea Waltham." She said, and her tone was reverent, respectful. "She was only the less lucky me."

Emmett put his arm around her, reassuring her she fit together with him.

"She… I saw her picture on the news once. She looked like me, sort of… but she had brown eyes, and her hair was a bit darker… she was very smiley, though. I… I wonder if… I wonder if Royce got her the same way he got me, if he dated her first, or if she just happened to be the one walking by…"

He squeezed her tightly to him, recognising that she needed to talk. Ever since she'd told him her story, there'd been a fair few times like these when she'd blurted something out about it. He guessed, once the dam was broken, sometimes things continued to spill out, unchecked. Things he was there to catch.

"I… I sometimes wonder if it was my fault, what happened to her. If I had told the police what they did to me… they might never have gotten to Chelsea…"

Emmett kissed her forehead. "You did nothing wrong, Rose. They were the only ones who ever did anything wrong."

She leant into him, resting her head on his shoulder. "I wonder what might have happened to her, if she survived, too. She probably would have been better than me, she probably would have stood straight back up on her feet and gotten on with life, not been such a burden…"

He stroked her hair. "You know that's not true, babe. You did the best you could…"

She turned her face into his chest. "I wonder if Chelsea would have found her _you._"

He laughed lightly. "There's only one of me, babe."

She kissed him gently, savouring the almost-oblivion he brought. "I… I also wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn't found you, Emmett."

He said nothing, words failing somewhere halfway up his throat.

"You… you're quite possibly the best thing that's ever happened to me, and… I don't even deserve you."

He ruffled her hair lightly, which made her scowl. "Of course you deserve me. And now who's being a sap?"

Her laughter, tinkling through the dusky twilight, and he'd done his job – for another day.

**A/N: Sorry for the lack of an update yesterday, I've had the most horrendous migraine and have only been able to drag myself to my computer now, to write this chapter :(**

**But you got three on Sunday, so you have no right to complain! Lols.**

**Hope you liked my attempts at _flangst _:D**

**Please review**

**x**


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter ThirtyThree**

"I'm telling you, Emmett, it's not going to be pretty." Jasper said, frustrated, running his hands through his newly cropped blonde hair. Emmett sighed, exasperated.

"I.. I thought she said after they found out what happened they were sympathetic?"

Jasper clenched his fists. "It's… it's not that… she… she kinda stopped wanting to have anything to do with them after they acted the way they did when they found… when they found the test. I… I talk to them on the phone once a week, and at first they asked after her… but I think they were just trying to appease me, and then eventually they stopped."

Emmett, who'd always been close to his parents, and had unconditional faith in his mind that they would stand by him whatever he did, could hardly understand his friend's words.

"But… surely…"

Jasper put his head in his hands. "Emmett, they're not like Carlisle and Esme. They were always more concerned about their careers than us, we grew up with nannies and babysitters and summer camps. Our mother… the priority at the top of her list is her reputation, the family's reputation, and what happened to Rosalie threatened that, whether it was her fault or not, whatever truths they found out about it afterwards… it still threatened her perfect little family with her perfect set of twins…" he took a deep breath. "And Rose and I, back before anything bad happened – I think we ignored it. We… we revelled in the freedom we had and… it wasn't until after what happened to her that I realised how we really couldn't rely on them, we were sort of… out on our own…"

Emmett was picking at the paint on the wall next to him. "I… Esme just invited them, said it would be nice, as it's Mother's Day and everything. Looked them up and called them and they agreed. She… she doesn't know all that, I think she thinks you just don't live with them because Rose had to get out of the city… I dunno… but I guess if I told her she could call them and call it off…" he trailed off, realising as he said it how impossible that would be. He looked at Jasper, man to man, two men that loved Rosalie, together, "Will… will she crack, again?"

Jasper shook his head. "I dunno. She's been… you wouldn't believe how much better she's been since she's been with you, I… I think she'll be all right… it'll just be awkward…"

"I'm sorry, Jasper, I guess I should have told Esme about your parents, I just didn't think…"

"You couldn't have known she would invite them, don't worry about it. I… d'you mind if I talk to Rose about it first?"

Emmett looked astounded for a moment, and then laughed lightly. "You don't have to ask my permission! She's still your sister!"

Jasper shrugged. "Just… you're better at making her feel better than I am… the last few months have proved that – I just think this time it's something I should talk to her about."

Emmett nodded. "Of course."

* * *

"She did what?" Rosalie hissed, her heart thudding. Her mother… it was hard for her to even turn the emotions into coherent thoughts, let alone words, but her mother represented everything she despised, every aspect of her past she wanted to lock away in a box somewhere and never ever get out.

"Rose… it's only a meal and then they're heading straight back… Esme and Carlisle are going to entertain them for the day whilst we'll be in school… it's only a few hours…"

"I… can't believe it!"

Her brother shook his head. "She didn't mean to cause trouble, Rose, she thought it would be nice for us…"

Rosalie knew that. She loved Esme – if she was honest – more than her own mother, and she knew she would never have done anything that she thought would hurt the pair of them, but somewhere, almost naively, she'd assumed their relationship with their parents wasn't light-years away from her own relationship with her children.

"I know… I… I don't know if I can face them, Jazz."

He looked her right in the eyes. Maybe Emmett was better at calming her down, at comforting her, at making her feel loved. But he _was _still her brother and he still knew her so well.

"You can." He said with conviction. "I know you can."

* * *

They decided to arrive just before dinner was served, Emmett and Rosalie, so as to give Rosalie minimal time to spend with her mother and father. As they drove up the driveway she leant over and squeezed his hand.

"Sorry for being such a drama queen about everything, Emm."

He grinned, and kissed her cheekbone quickly. "I wouldn't have you any other way, babe."

She gave a wobbly smile, and they went inside.

Rosalie's mother was clearly where Rosalie had got her looks from, but Mrs Hale had taken the artificial enhancement a step too far. Not only was her pale make up and red lipstick over-defined and showy, but her face wore the perfect smoothness and slightly-too-tautness of someone who'd been under the knife more than once. Her figure was perfect, too perfect on a woman her age, and although she was only a few years older than Esme, she had nothing of his mother's natural, youthful beauty, she simply looked false. Mr Hale had the air of a businessman you wouldn't want to cross, with the stuck-up nose, the combed, slightly thinning hair and the bright white teeth – it was obvious he'd once been a looker too, but he _was _aging. He nodded to them both as he walked in the room, Rosalie leading the way, but with his hand resting gently in the small of her back, guiding her.

"Mrs Hale, Mr Hale, this is our eldest son Emmett." Carlisle spoke when Rosalie said nothing. Her parents both looked at her, and Emmett saw something foreign in their eyes, something he didn't expect. Somehow, although he'd been prepared for the worst, he had retained some naïveté and had thought that maybe when Rosalie and her parents met up again something missing would somehow fall into place. But the look in their eyes told him instantly he had been wrong. It was… estrangement, though he wasn't sure that was the best moment.

They were strangers to their own daughter, though, that was for sure. Even when Mr Hale finally spoke, his tone was clipped, formal, like he was talking to a prospective client.

"How are you, Rosalie?"

She looked between, and Emmett didn't miss the scathing flash in her eyes. She was judging them as they were judging her, and they would forever run in circles around each other because of that, but he didn't, couldn't bring himself to blame her.

"Not too bad, thanks." She said shortly, and took her seat next to him, positioning herself close enough to feel his body heat, finding what she had once found intimidating, that closeness and suffocation, suddenly overwhelmingly comforting.

For the main part of the meal Esme and Carlisle made polite conversation with the Hales about jobs and about New York City. Emmett and Rosalie kept their heads close, Emmett racking his brains desperately for something to say, still clinging desperately to the hope that he might be able to patch things together a little, Rosalie shrinking beside him, wishing he could hide her. It wasn't until dessert that the subject came around to the pair of them.

"Emmett's considering Yale seriously, a Masters in Chemistry-" Esme started, and Emmett chipped in, "Rose has applied too."

Suddenly, her parents' eyes were on her again. "Really, Rosalie? You never were much of an academic back home…" her mother said, and her tone was as full of false niceties as her face. "What studying?"

"Psychiatry." Rosalie said in a low voice, avoiding their gaze, her eyes flickering between Emmett and her brother. Emmett reached out and gave her hand a squeeze, something that didn't go unnoticed by her parents, her father stiffening, her mother frowning.

"What about you, Jasper?" Mr Hale turned to his son. Jasper looked briefly between Alice and Rosalie, and then back to his parents.

"I…. I'm still undecided." He said, but Rosalie read something else in his eyes. There was more to it than that. But the conversation moved from their specifics futures to universities in general, and Emmett got the distinct impression that Mr Hale was trying to prove the merits of his education against Carlisle's medical school training.

Rosalie excused herself to go to the bathroom after dessert, whilst Esme was making coffee, and it was the moment she had left the room that Mrs Hale pounced.

"Jasper, dear, you should come live at home again, all this moving – pandering to Rosalie's every whim, it's getting old…"

The first thing Jasper did was shoot Emmett a warning look, a look which clearly read _don't. _But his own eyes were filling with anger and under the table Alice reached out and touched his knee gently, trying to force calm onto him.

"What happened to her-"

"It's in the past, darling, and although we all regret it… it's no reason for you not to come home. You've missed out on so much, so many parties, so many rich pretty girls…"

Emmett's eyes fell to Alice, who narrowed hers at her boyfriend's mother, but said nothing.

"And what about Rosalie, Mom?"

Mrs Hale made a show of sighing theatrically. "I think it would be better if she didn't come back, don't you? People are already talking about your sudden departure, and with that ex-boyfriend of hers being put in prison for killing that poor girl-"

"YOU REALLY DON'T GET IT, DO YOU?" Emmett suddenly yelled, half-regretting it instantly, but suddenly unable to quell the words flowing from his mouth. Carlisle moved to stop him, but he shook his head once, roughly.

Mrs Hale looked affronted, but turned cold eyes to him. "What?"

"_That ex-boyfriend of hers **raped **_her, Mrs Hale. He… he stripped away every inch of her self respect, and she still didn't tell you, she didn't want to disappoint you, and he left her with a baby, and she did the only thing she could think of… and she got rid of it, and that hurt her, but you **just don't see her, **do you?? You just don't understand her!"

Rosalie's father stood up, eyes icy. "I understand her very well, thank you. She's been a silly foolish girl in the past, and she doesn't know the meaning of paying for her own mistakes. She deeply upset her mother and I with the situation last year…"

"It was not a fucking situation-"

"Emmett!" Simultaneously from Esme and Carlisle.

"-she was raped! What part of it don't you understand? It wasn't her fault!" he took a deep breath, trying to calm his ragged breathing. "I can't listen to this anymore!"

He walked out of the room.

"I'm not coming anywhere with you." Jasper said in a cold voice. "I… save it, Mom. Forget it."

Mrs Hale opened her mouth to argue, but Carlisle stood up. Jasper had never seen him quite like it, and Esme only once – when she had first met him, and he had handed her the phone and implored her to call the police, anger in his eyes at her mistreatment.

"I think you've said enough, both of you. I would appreciate it if you both left my house."

"Dr Cullen, I don't think that's-"

"Leave this house." He said sharply. "I won't ask again."

With a last, futile, beseeching look at Jasper, they left.

* * *

"Rose, let me in!" Emmett said in a low voice from outside the bathroom door. "I'm sorry for that. I shouldn't have shouted, I just…"

She opened the bathroom door, her hair wild, makeup tracks running down her face, but to him, she was as perfect and beautiful as always, clichéd as that would have seemed to anyone, even Emmett himself a year before.

She reached out and took his hands.

"Thank you." She whispered.

He shook his head bitterly, and drew her a little closer. "For what? I just pushed your parents even further away…"

She shrugged, "I… I don't think I would have had the courage to tell them they were wrong myself… I, I don't need them, never really have. They… they never really cared about Jazz and I. I… if you're happy to share, Emm, I'll take Esme and Carlisle instead."

He grinned, and kissed her. "Sure. As long as that doesn't make you my sister…"

She laughed lightly and kissed him back. "No, not exactly…"

Her tears began to dry.

**A/N: Well, I had a fab time skiing with only two falls (both of which were spectacular however) and fun drinking nights out dancing on French bars ;)**

**And then I got home, wrote a chapter straight away… and wouldn't post it :( Stupid gay website :P Anyway, here it finally is, and I hope you haven't all given up on me in my extended absence. This one was hard to write :S I found it difficult, and I know Rosalie's parents are horrid, but that is the intention. They're _those _parents who never have anything to do with their children and then just want to flaunt them in front of their friends. I don't think we'll be seeing anymore of them for a good while :D**

**In other news, I'm in a dilemma as to whether, when this is finished, as it nearly is (that's exciting, this is the longest fic I've ever finished) to go straight into the sequel, Veiled Thorns, or to write another RxEm fic straight away – I've got a couple of ideas floating around in my brain :P On one hand, I know I write these characterisations of them well, and this fic's gone down really well, but on the other hand, absence makes the heart grow fonder…. :L**

**I have big plans for the next chapter, so stick with me :)**


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter ThirtyFour**

"When are you going to tell me where we're going?" he whined, as she lead him through the woods by his hands, blindfolded and stumbling.

"When we get there." She said smugly, "And don't pout. It's your birthday, and this is your surprise."

He grunted something, but kept faltering after her, enjoying her hands in his and the slight air of mystery.

"Ta-dah!" she said finally, and he could hear the smile in her voice. The week after her parents' had come to Forks she'd been a shadow of the old Rosalie, quiet and retiring, but then it had begun to perk up again and they'd managed to put the whole thing behind them again and everything, completely and totally everything was good. Which was a feeling neither of them had been able to comprehend the year before.

"Uh… Rose? The blindfold?"

She giggled slightly. "You're just cute with it on." She said absent-mindedly as she untied it with deft, soft fingers and let it fall to the floor. He blinked a couple of times and then took in his surroundings, a smile spreading wider and wider across his face as he did so.

They were in the clearing, the clearing from their first date. Rosalie had laid out three blankets, one with food set out all over it, and one with drinks and the other one for the pair of them. He choked briefly, and when he turned to her his eyes were dark.

"Rose, how did you-"

"Edward and Alice helped me find it, and Bella helped me set it all up this morning. Happy birthday, Emmett."

He pulled her closer to him, wrapping his arms around her, kissing her neck lightly and then looking her right in the eyes. "It's beautiful, babe, thank you."

She smiled. "Don't mention it. Now, come on, picnic time!"

The way her eyes lit up as she dragged him down onto the blanket made his heart speed up. There was something different there. It wasn't just excitement, happiness, from his birthday. Something unreadable, something different…

* * *

He finished his strawberries with a sigh, and drew her into his lap, smiling.

"I love you." He said simply, like it was the simplest thing in the world. She smiled, and considered something. That sort of defined love, when someone said that to you and you didn't have to say it back, they… they just _knew. _She didn't need to say it back to Emmett. Not now, not right this moment. She would say it, probably again today, probably in the next few days, probably four or five times by the end of the week, but that _was _love, she thought. Not needing to say it.

"I haven't given you your present yet." She teased, twisting a finger in one of his chocolate curls, grinning.

He shrugged. "This is enough, Rose, this is amazing…"

She shook her head, and that look passed into her eyes again, smiling seductively, the new light in her violet eyes entrancing him. She shifted in his lap so she was facing him, one leg either side, and lowered her lips to his.

It wasn't quite like any other kiss they'd ever shared. From the very start, he knew something was very different. It was more… assured than ever before, more… if it was even possible, more perfect. Her tongue slid against hers in a dance they now both knew well, and he felt the familiar sensation of raw _want, _need and love spreading to the tips of his fingers, the ends of his toes, and strongest in his centre, pooling in his groin, making him ache for her. When they finally broke apart, gasping for air, she placed baby kisses to his lips so as not to break the contact, afraid that if she pulled away, reconsidered for one second, everything would fall out of the perfect line it was in right now and this would be too hard.

Her eyes were different, too. He'd never seen them this dark. But, right at that moment, he didn't even have chance to consider what that might mean, for her lips were back on his, her hands stroking the muscular planes of his chest, sliding under his polo shirt, nails scratching slightly, just enough to send shivers down his spine, not enough to hurt.

"Rose…" he murmured, and his voice in that low, growling tone made her heart thump and her mouth almost water, and she pushed herself closer to him, desperate for something more, all of a sudden.

She'd thought she would have to grit her teeth and bear it, but she found herself wanting it, _wanting him, _more than she had previously known she could. His kisses were hot and wet against her neck, but, ever the gentleman, ever gentle and careful with her, his hands stayed firmly, sensibly, _boringly _fixed in her hair. She let her mouth turn up into a slight smile, and taking his hands, slid them up under her own shirt, loosing a few buttons on the way, before sliding hers back to continue their exploration of his stomach muscles, one by one.

That was all the encouragement he needed, and once she'd granted him access his lips found her own again as he cupped her breasts lightly in his hands, kneading gently, fingers sliding expertly, nervously under the bra. Rosalie struggled slightly to undo the remaining buttons of her shirt, and pulled it over her head roughly, Emmett catching on at the last moment and giving the final tug, freeing it of her ears. This time his lips began to travel down, gently, testing her with every kiss, her chin, her jaw, her neck, her collarbone, between her breasts…

She let out a deep sigh and repositioned herself, sliding him down so he was sandwiched between the blanket and her, tugging his shirt away as she did so, smiling widely at him, his own eyes dark with longing. It took no more than a deft flick of his fingers to remove her of her bra, all the while locking her eyes with his, asking, wordlessly, whether this was still all right. She said nothing, but the brimming desire in her own eyes gave him all the answer he needed. Somehow, though as an item of clothing the purple lace bra was futile, she found herself shivering as he _looked _at her, and something changed inside her.

Because the way Emmett was looking at her was worlds away from the way Royce and the others had looked at her, back when he'd taken everything from her. This was different, Emmett was looking at her with love – and he was _giving _everything to her, not the other way around.

She brought their lips together again, suddenly impatient, hungry, yearning. Then she slid her hands down over his chest, his stomach, his hips and under the loose waistband of his jeans, sliding further down. Emmett's breath hitched for a moment, and this time he voiced his fear: "Rose… I… I can't hurt you…" his tone was breathy, like he was forcing down some feral growl, "Is this… what you want, too?"

She gave him a small smile, her hands finding their mark, and she delighted in watching his eyes roll back in his head slightly, unable to keep their focus. And then she nodded slowly, tantalising, licking her lips almost without noticing.

"I want you." She said, and he was jealous of how steady and _normal _her voice sounded, in comparison to his pathetic attempt. "All of you, always."

That was the last bridge to build, he needed no more. He flipped the pair of them, bracing himself against the blanket below them, assaulting her neck with kisses, each a little less gentle than the last. She wriggled out of her own jeans, he followed suit, and when… when it happened he looked into her eyes, no longer needing to check for her pain because the excitement and joy that rested there was almost choking him with happiness.

She waited for the pain to come, waited for the memories to resurface. She had every intention of pushing them right back down, but she wasn't sure if when she felt the same pain again, a memory that had dulled wouldn't come back into being, and she didn't have quite the faith in herself to know she could suppress it. But the pain didn't come; only a soft, contented feeling of… lame as it sounded… completion. She remembered a hoodie Jasper had worn in New York city when they were fifteen, bright blue with three white puzzle pieces on the pocket, and words saying _You Complete Me _in the centre. She'd hated that hoodie.

Almost laughing to herself at the bizarre direction her thoughts were taking, she was cut short when she felt him fill her further, and as her eyes slipped back to his it took her breath away. The pain wasn't going to come…

_The pain wasn't going to come…_

"I love you." She breathed. There it was – her reply. Not necessary, he didn't _need _it, she wanted it. Her name escaped his lips half a dozen times, and then she cried out his name as she came crashing down around him, ears ringing and rockets exploding behind eyelids unwillingly closed, barely noticing his own cry of "Rose!" before she felt him shudder and collapse onto her, completed.

It wasn't suffocating, wasn't crushing.

It was free.

* * *

Afterwards, wrapped in the blanket on the forest floor, he traced circles on the creamy white expanse of her bare back with his index finger, a stupid smile on his face. She leant forward slightly and kissed him just below his ear.

"I…. Happy Birthday, Emmett. I'll give you your present when we get back." She whispered, thinking of the new games console for the Cullen household she and Jasper had invested in.

He raised an eyebrow. "That wasn't my present?"

Rosalie, smiling, falsely wide-eyed and innocent. "What ever do you mean?"

He cocked his head on one side, pulling her an inch or two closer. "The bit where you seduced an unsuspecting young man right here on this very blanket?"

She laughed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He whistled lightly, kissing her cheek. "It really is my lucky day, huh?"

A wide, almost uncharacteristic grin. "If you say so."

**A/N: Gahhhh! You have no idea how much I was stressing over this chapter. I hope it turned out ok, and I hope it didn't exceed the T rating :S Let me know if I handled it well, or less so (ie, appallingly) D:**

**Anyhoo, we're on the home strait now, folks!!! Not many more chapters to go, and pretty much solid fluff all the way. Still thinking about whether to follow with Veiled Thorns or something else, I'll let you know when I do :)**

**And, uh, I've given up swearing for lent. Like, completely. So if you notice Emmett and Rosalie ceasing to curse anymore – that's all me!!! :P**

**Review.**


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter ThirtyFive**

Someone was shaking him awake.

"Five more minutes, Mom…" he moaned, forcing his eyes firmly closed and rolling over onto his side. For a moment, he started to sink back into sleep. Then, the shaking continued, this time coupled with a voice – and not his mother's.

"Emmett, the letter came!!! God's sake, Emmett, wake up! The letter came!"  
Alice. And it sounded important. But in his sleep-induced stupidity he couldn't connect what she was saying with any relevant meaning. Slowly, his eyes drifted open. It must have been quite late in the day, because Alice was up and dressed, and grinning, all bright-eyed and bushy tailed. But her grin wasn't 100 per cent… it was almost nervous.

"The letter came, Emmett! From Yale!"

She thrust an envelope in his face as he rubbed sleep from his eyes, sitting up. Sure enough, the crest on the envelope, vaguely familiar from filling out all those application forms, was of Yale University. Alice thrust the letter further into his face and bounced a little on the bed, her eyes bursting with excitement.

"Jeez, Alice, what time is it?"

She shook her head at him. "It doesn't matter! Open the damn thing!"

He laughed at her impatience and took the letter from her, purposely turning it over slowly, tantalisingly tearing at the mouth of the envelope.

"Hurry up!" she said in a hushed whisper, as if it were a sacred moment and she didn't want to break the silence. He finished his slow paper ripping, grinning at her, a joking glint in his eyes making her frown at him. He slid the letter out slowly, turning it over and unfolding it in his hands.

He was concentrating on teasing Alice, but his heart was thudding. His future, _his and Rosalie's future, _he supposed, lay on the thin white sheet of paper in his hands.

_'Dear Mr Cullen, we are pleased to inform you that we would like to offer you a place…'_

For a moment he choked – it suddenly seemed all so real. He looked up at Alice, and the look in his eyes told her in an instant what she needed to know. She swallowed. She was happy, ecstatic for her brother, but… something inside, something she would never admit to and would loathe forever, hoped Rosalie hadn't got in and Emmett could stay at home. If only for one more year, she wasn't quite ready to give up her brother yet…

She swallowed. She'd already told herself there was no use in even thinking like that. Not now. She'd been almost sure Emmett would get in, and she'd known, maybe even for longer than Emmett himself had voiced the thought, that her eldest brother was suffocated by Forks and couldn't wait to get out. And while now the situation _had _changed, and she had complete and utter faith in the thought he would not leave Rosalie, she still knew, deep down, he would find some way of getting out of there.

"Phone Rose." She said, passing him the phone, and he looked up at her with grateful eyes, wondering only briefly how she knew exactly what he wanted to do at that moment, then putting it down to the fact that she was _Alice. _"I'll go downstairs and let Mom, Dad and Edward know."

Emmett gave her a grateful half-smile, but was already dialling the number.

"Hello?"

"Jasper, it's Emmett. Have you checked the post this morning?"

"No mate, I just got up. Uh… why? Do you wanna speak to Rose?"

"Please. And check the post."

Emmett could almost picture the confusion on his friend's face. "Uh… ok… Rosalie!"

There was the sound of footsteps running, and then her voice, her beautiful, gentle, breathy voice in his ear. "Hey, Emmett."

A smile breaking onto his face, without even being able to help it. "Hey, babe. I, I uh… I got into Yale."

There was a thick, full silence. "That's brilliant. Uh-"

She was cut off by Jasper's voice in the background, "For you."

"One second, Emmett." She whispered, and her voice was full of fear and anticipation and excitement all in one. "Oh…"

"What? What is it?"

But she said nothing. He heard the sound of an envelope ripping and his heart lurched. He wouldn't go back on his promise, not now, not ever, but suddenly, knowing he'd been accepted, he didn't want to have to let this opportunity go. Though he would, for her, in an instant, he didn't _want _to.

"Rose?"

"Uh… I got in too, Emmett!" her voice was incredulous, like she was talking about someone else, like there'd been some mistake. He was hit with the near-painful realisation that she really still had little faith in herself.

"That's brilliant!" he half-yelled, and the sound of her laughter on the other end made him smile. "I… I'm coming over. See you in ten."

She giggled. "Calm down before you drive, babe." She murmured, "Love you."

He set the phone down, half-leaping out of bed, tugging a hoodie on over his tank top and shoving his feet into sneakers, not bothering to change out of the joggers he wore to bed. He ran down the stairs two at a time, and was about to dash out the front door, grabbing the keys to the Jeep from the side table, when he was pounced on.

"Emmett Cullen! Where do you think you're going?"

He spun round, sighing, but then smiling again when he saw his mother standing in the doorway, the biggest grin on her face. "Come here, you!" she laughed, and pulled him into a hug, "Congratulations!"

He hugged her tightly for a moment; half lifting her off her feet, making her squeal and laugh. "Mom, I have to go. Rosalie got in too!"

She had happy tears in her eyes when he set her down, and she kissed him on the cheek. "I'm so… your father and I are so proud, Emmett."

He grinned, half-awkwardly, hoping for an easy escape so she wouldn't start full-out crying. "Love you, Mom."

"Love you." She whispered, "Congratulate Rose from us and get her and Jasper over here for a celebratory dinner!"

"Will do." Emmett smiled, and then left the house.

He was about to start the Jeep to drive away when Alice came running out the door, her face hued with tears. He took his hand away from the key in the ignition, and looked at his sister as she came running towards him.

"Alice, what's wrong?"

"You're leaving." She whispered, "You're all leaving, and it's only gonna be me and Edward and Bella left."

_Jasper… _It wasn't just him leaving, and Rose. It was Jasper, too.

He patted the seat next to him in the Jeep. "You coming with me?" he asked, unsure what else to say. It seemed it was exactly what Alice needed. She slid into the seat beside him, and he put an arm round her and squeezed tightly as he put the Jeep into gear and drove away.

"I… I don't think I even know how much I'll miss you." She whispered.

Emmett frowned. He was so happy, yet seeing Alice like this… "I'll be back more often than you expect, Alice, and you'll have Edward and Bella…"

She gave a little laugh. "Emmett, you and I both know they only have time for each other these days."

Emmett nodded, "Maybe, but you won't be alone. And you can come and visit us, and I'll call every day and Jasper-"

She gave him a small, sad smile. "It's ok, Emmett, thanks for trying, but you're not going to make it feel any better, not yet."

They drew up at the Hale house and Emmett rung the doorbell. In a way that would have may Alice laugh, had she been in a better mood, Rosalie fell out of the door into Emmett's arms, and the two of them, laughing and crying and kissing, stood close, for the first time, the perfect picture of happiness. Then Jasper came through the door, and took one of Alice's hands.

"So… do you have any offers yet?" she asked him in a small voice, and Emmett could see the determination on her face to put on a brave face for Jasper, to not show him her melancholy. Rosalie broke away from Emmett for a moment, stifling a laugh, which earnt her a dagger-look from Jasper.

"What?" Emmett whispered, and Rosalie nodded towards her twin brother.

"I'm not going anywhere." Jasper announced, and all eyes were suddenly focused on him, "I was going to keep it a surprise, but I guess… I'm joining the police force here, I've spoken to Charlie Swan, and I can start my training in the-"

He was cut off by the little dark-haired girl kissing him.

Rosalie and Emmett laughed together, their arms wrapped around each other's waists, heads closer.

Forever, which had at one point seemed so distant, was beginning to form in front of their very eyes.

**A/N: Sorry this didn't come sooner, I've been busy again :S Hope you liked it, it really is coming to a close now. **

**And, I know most people want me to go straight into Veiled Thorns, but here's a taster of two other ideas I've had in my head:**

**Behind These Violet Eyes – Rosalie, a talented and attractive young law student meets and falls in love with her handsome, young, married professor Emmett.**

**Chasing Shadows – Set against the backdrop of a fictional war, Rosalie Cullen waits for news of her young husband, fighting on the front, whilst reminiscing over their life together.**

**And then of course there's:**

**Veiled Thorns – Set seven years after Roses Behind Mirrors and Emmett and Rosalie are both successful professionals, and are newly happily married. And we go from there ;)**

**Let me know your thoughts on any of these ideas.**

**And review. **


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter ThirtySix**

"Are you sure this dress is the right colour, Rosalie?" Alice asked, doing about her seventieth twirl in front of her big dressing room mirror. Bella, from where she was sat on the bed, groaned.

"Alice, for the thousandth time-"

The youngest Cullen frowned and looked at her friend. "Am I annoying you?" she asked, raising her eyebrows cheekily. Bella rolled her eyes.

"You look wonderful, Alice. A hundred times better than me." Bella recited, and Alice frowned again, but her eyes were sparkling.

"I know you hate things like this, Bella, but please… you don't look terrible. You look lovely. Edward…." She fastened the last decoration in Bella's hair with a flourish, "… is going to love it."

Bella gave a small, world-weary smile, and shrugged.

"What do you think, guys?" Rosalie said in a small voice from the doorway of Alice's bathroom, stepping through.

Both jaws dropped. If either of them looked beautiful, Rosalie was Aphrodite, goddess of beauty. The dress she was wearing was long, tight fitting at the bodices and fishtailing out at the bottom, and was the most beautiful deep red colour. Her hair had hardly been done, simply half of it pinned up behind her head, the rest falling in gold curls over her shoulders. As yet, she had no makeup on, but it almost wasn't even noticeable. The gold of her hair, and cream of her skin and the red of her dress complimented each other perfectly and for a moment there was complete silence. Then Alice groaned.

"You look so much better than me, Rose!" she laughed, and smoothed down her own dress, a long, emerald green one with black beading across the bodice. "It isn't fair."

"I don't even know why I bother." Bella laughed, her plain black dress falling far short. But the other two girls had laughter, light and admiration in their eyes, and when Rosalie caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, even she was slightly taken aback, but not for the same reason as her friends. She _did _look beautiful, but then she always looked beautiful, there was no change there. The dress just made it more obvious, more overt, more in-your-face.

But for the first time in her life, as she stood in the bedroom of the sister of man she loved, with two girls who had befriended her not for her money or her looks, approximately two hours before Prom, she didn't resent her beauty. She didn't want to mask her face in makeup and hide from the beautiful girl that had drawn the wrong kind of attention from Royce King and his friends. She didn't want to retreat within a shell, close over, pretend that Rosalie Hale was only half a person. She… she brushed a tear away from her eye as she realised she was, in that moment, completely and totally happy, without condition.

* * *

"Uh… wow." Was all that escaped Emmett's mouth when the three of them walked out of the living room into the hall where the girls were waiting. Alice was grinning, Bella looked positively pissed off, and Rosalie… Rosalie looked radiant. He'd never seen anyone looked quite like it, quite… wow, even his thoughts were struggling to be coherent. She gave a beautiful, demure smile and took his hand.

"Wow." He whispered again, but this time followed it with, "You look…" he was going to say beautiful, but that was a given, with Rosalie, and he understood her more every day, and knew, although he wasn't sure how he felt about it, that she didn't thank him for saying she looked beautiful. "You look… happy."

And her radiant smile told him that was the best compliment he could have given.

Alice had hired a limo, because although Edward had been happy to take Bella in the Volvo, and Emmett couldn't have honestly cared less about what car he drove in, this was their last (and only) Prom together, and Alice wanted them all together on the way there and the way back, smiling and taking photos in the back whilst she blared out loud, bad music and Emmett stuck his head out of the window, until Rosalie pulled him back in, trying to tame his now mussed curly hair, and laughing lightly when it stuck right back up again when she flattened it.

She wanted to take in the three couples, all six of them sat together, but each other them clearly separated into their pairs, sat a tiny bit closer to their other half, but subtly, so the group blended together. She wanted to feel a warm feeling creeping around her as she watched Edward lean down to whisper something in Bella's ear, something that made her friend's cheeks flush red, and she wanted to feel Jasper relax by her side as he saw how happy Rosalie was with Emmett. She wanted to smile between them and fix the perfect moment in her mind before everything changed, because although she had Jasper with her right now, it wouldn't be the same without Emmett and Rosalie, and there was only one more year until she and Edward and Bella finished at Forks High School anyway, and then she had no idea where they would be – all of them. So she needed this moment, this here and now, to hold the memory tight in her mind, to stop her from ever forgetting.

She wanted to step out of the limo onto the red carpet that was lined out, and take Jasper's arm, and walk behind Emmett and Rose, with Bella and Edward behind, and feel beautiful and loved and _together _all in one moment. She wanted to sip decidedly non-alcoholic, slightly flat sodas, and nibble on bad, lukewarm food. She wanted to dance to bad music with Bella and Rosalie, even if she had to drag Bella onto the dance-floor with someone else pushing from behind. She wanted to feel Jasper's arms around her in the slow songs, and she wanted to stumble out at the end, feet hurting like hell from the ridiculous shoes she'd worn, but smiling, happy, satisfied.

Alice's wishes were granted.

* * *

Emmett was very good, Rosalie thought, he'd danced with her to nearly everything, even though she could tell he'd clearly rather be somewhere else, most likely playing football out on the field, or walking through the forest with her, or something – anything, really, other than Prom.

But he, ever the gentleman, ever _her _gentleman, didn't complain once. He danced with her, danced with Alice, even forced Bella into something that barely resembled a dance. But when they danced together, at the end, to the final song, he put his arms around her, and his eyes bore into hers and they were solely, genuinely just for her.

"I love you." He mouthed, as he pulled her closer, and she was shocked, and then gave a light chuckle to see his eyes sparkling, ever so slightly, with emotion. "I… you've changed my life."

That choked her. She hadn't expected anything like that, not on the middle of the dance floor, at Prom, which Emmett wasn't exactly the biggest fan of. She gave him a small smile, and he seemed to understand that she was literally physically incapable of replying. She rested her head on his shoulder lightly – he'd shed the tux a lot earlier in the night, and she could smell the scent of him through the thin cotton. He placed a light kiss to her hair, and as she smiled he felt her lips move, through the single layer separating skin from skin.

As he held her, Emmett considered. This time last year, he'd never even heard of Rosalie Hale. He didn't even think, stupid and clichéd and downright corny as it sounded, that he had understood love. He didn't think for one minute that in merely twelve months he would have found someone… and he didn't really like to even think it, for fear it might waft away with the thought and not be real anymore… someone he might want to spend his forever with.

**A/N: Agh, a lot of that was very Alice-y!!?! I hope that was ok with you :)**

**One more chap and an epilogue to go now, guys. Pass the tissues…**

**Because it seems to be what most of you want, I'm gonna pick up Veiled Thorns straight away, whilst I've still got these characters in my head. I haven't got a solid plan for it yet, though, so it might be a bit slow off the starting blocks, but I'll get it going as soon as I can!!!**

**Review, please, I'm ever-grateful.**


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter ThirtySeven**

"Rose? You ready?"

She took one last, unnecessary look in the mirror, because today it would reassure her. Somehow, she expected, on this day and forever onwards, to look different, to look… like a Psychology degree student, to look… adult. But nothing in that mirror had changed, at face value. She still had the long blonde curls, the violet eyes, the pale skin. The perfect picture of beauty was still unmarked. But to those who had known her then, to those who knew her now, things had changed. Her eyes were warmed, much warmer, than they had once been, and her lips didn't curve automatically downwards anymore – they even had a slight upward lift. She wore less makeup these days, too, there was less need to smother the raw emotion she hadn't been able to remove from her face.

No, today, the mirror reassured her. She was a reflection of the Rosalie she had been last year, a reflection on the brighter side of the mirror, and somehow that made everything all right, as she lifted her bag from her bed, now stripped down to the mattress with the pillow and duvet folded in the corner, empty and bare, and headed out after Jasper's voice, not looking back.

Her brother was stood by the front door, her suitcase beside him, ready for him to lift out to the car. He smiled at her sadly.

"You ready?" he echoed, and she smiled, but it stuck somewhere halfway between a smile and her words, and in an instant she dropped her bag and wrapped her arms round his body, leaning into his, remembering the feel of him beside her, something that she would miss, maybe more than anything else.

"Hey." He whispered, stroking her hair lightly.

"I'm gonna miss you." Her voice was breathy and so quiet he could hardly hear it. He hugged her tightly.

"I'll miss you too… you don't have to go…"

Even Rosalie could tell he was desperate, clutching at straws. She pulled away, held his hands briefly and looked at him. "I do, Jasper. I have to go. Same as you have to stay."

He seemed to agree to that, because he said nothing more. He simply tucked her hair behind her ear on one side, and squeezed her shoulder one last time, smiling, almost bitterly.

"You take care, Rosalie, you hear?" he swallowed. "You can call me… anytime."

She nodded, and kissed his cheek. "Don't fret, Jazz. Emmett'll take good care of me, you'll see."

He nodded. "I know." He turned away, lifting the suitcase and walking through the front door. "I know."

* * *

Esme's eyes were filling with tears, but she blinked them furiously away, because they blurred her vision, and she couldn't have her last glimpses of her son blurred. Carlisle had his arm in its usual place wrapped snugly around her waist, but this time it fit more tightly than before. That was the only sign he was giving of any distress, as calm-faced and gentle as ever. Emmett looked at his parents, and then at his sister and brother, forcing his usual dimple-cheeked smile onto his face, grinning at them, whilst inside, his heart was thudding. He hadn't expected this day to come so soon; he'd waited for it for a good five years and now it was here and he hardly knew what to expect, what to say…

To Esme and Carlisle he looked so _adult, _their grown son, and to both of them it caught in their throats. Alice and Edward weren't far behind either, and this… this beginning for Emmett… this meant that someday, and now it was sooner that it ever had been, they would all be leaving them.

The red BMW M3 convertible came roaring down the road to the drive, where Edward was loading the Jeep, and Emmett was making his final goodbyes. Rosalie looked composed, beautiful, but Emmett could instantly read the sadness in her eyes, she missed Jasper and the others already. Jasper and Rosalie climbed out the car, and Edward wordlessly took Rosalie's pale blue suitcase from Jasper and loaded it into the Jeep. Then they all stood, forming a lop-sided circle, staring.

"We should… we should get on the road quickly…" Emmett started, half-choking on his words, wishing desperately now, in some bitter irony, that he could have one more hour here, one more day, one more year… Rosalie took his hand in hers, and the feel of her cold, small palm against his gave him an unspeakable reassurance – wherever he ended up, it would be with her. Carlisle and Esme were nodding briskly, like Emmett was suggesting a day trip over to La Push or something, not the final act of leaving home.

"You… take care of yourself, Emmett." Carlisle said, and for a moment there was a silence, and he clapped his hand over his son's shoulder, trying to smile. But Emmett pulled his father into a hug, fingers gripping the perfectly pressed cotton of Carlisle's shirt, remembering when he was so small he used to cling to his father's clothes to hold him in piggy-back… but now he towered over Dr Cullen, and he wasn't even a small man. They pulled back, awkwardness forgotten, and Carlisle patted his son's shoulder one more time. "Enjoy yourself."

He turned to Esme, who wasn't able to hide her tears anymore. Beside him, his sister and even Edward were hugging Rosalie, but for this single moment he could only focus his attention on his mother, the woman who had brought him into the world, who had put a band-aid over his scraped knees, who had kissed him on the top of his curly hair until he grew too tall for her to reach, who had laughed and threaten to ground him for his whole life when she had asked him to dry the dishes and he had patted her on the head and skipped off upstairs, who had been the one to step in and break it gently to her husband that Emmett had no intention of becoming a doctor and working under Carlisle at the hospital…

His eyes blurred as her threw his arms around her, holding her tightly to him, and he felt her shoulders shake a little. She pulled away, and patted the side of his cheek through tear-filled eyes, a bright smile juxtaposing the sorrow in her eyes.

"Make me proud, Emmett Cullen." She whispered, "Make sure you call at least once a week, eat properly, change your underwear every day-" that earnt a groan from her son, "-don't ever change, and…" she trailed off, and looked pointedly towards Rosalie, "…make sure you don't ever let go of a good thing…"

He nodded, kissed his mother on the cheek, wondering how she ever got so wise, and gave her his full-on, dimple-cheeked smile.

"Love you, Mom." He said, hugging her one more time, "Always."

Edward was next. The brothers hugged, awkwardly at first, but then Emmett clapped Edward on the back. "Keep an eye on Mom when Dad's at work, won't you?"

Edward nodded solemnly. Emmett chuckled, and nodded towards Bella. "Don't you hurt her. And don't do anything I wouldn't do…"

But, maybe not so strangely, Alice was the hardest. She'd stopped even trying to hide her tears as she flung her arms around Emmett's neck. "I want you to call me everyday." She said into his shoulder, and he laughed lightly but sadly. He ruffled her spiky hair.

"You'll love it really, me being gone." He said quietly, "Control of the TV, enough room in the garage for your own car, me not bugging you and Jasper when you're _alone…_"

She gave a light laugh, but tears still spilled from her eyes and she shook her head. "I'll miss you, Emmett…"

"I'll miss you too, Al." he whispered, hugging her so tightly he lifted her up off the ground and swung her round a little, making her smile, at least a little.

Lastly, he was faced with Jasper. The two of them shook hands awkwardly, both looking anywhere but each other's face, knowing what would come next.

"Look, Emmett-" Jasper said at the same time as Emmett said, "Jasper…"

They both laughed, and then Jasper leant in, his tone serious.

"Watch out for Rose. She's… she's so much better, but she's still so…" he was struggling to find the word. Emmett nodded, meaning he didn't have to.

"I know. I was about to say the same to you. You – take care of Alice… if anything happens to her…" he trailed, but something threatening flashed through his eyes, and Jasper was no fool. He clapped Emmett's shoulder with his palm.

"I… I won't let anything happen." He said solemnly. "Have fun, Emmett. Come back soon."

"You betcha." His friend grinned, and then turned away.

Emmett and Rosalie climbed into the Jeep, and with final waves, and with final tears, they started to drive.

* * *

Further down the road, Rosalie woke up from her light doze, and smiled across at her companion.

"Love you." She whispered, as she rubbed sleep from her eyes. He grinned at her, and now was one of the times he was going to say it back.

"Love you too." He murmured, and the sunshiny grin she gave him was worth anything, worth leaving everything behind for. They both smiled for a moment, saying nothing.

"How far now?" she asked, merely out of curiosity rather than boredom.

"Three to four hours, give or take…"

She nodded slowly, and then started to shake her head in disbelief, something he saw out of the corner of his eye.

"What?"

"I just… I can't believe myself. I can't believe I'm here, with you, after everything that happened… going…"

"Going where?" he asked, his tone light and joking, but both their words had been holding hidden meaning.

Rosalie put her hand over his as it went to the gearstick.

"Towards forever."

**A/N: Well, folks, that's the last chapter! I hoped you liked it! An epilogue is on it's way, and Veiled Thorns is kicking off! Sorry this update took so long, by the way, I've had a very very busy week. I visited Bristol University's vet school on Sunday, and it was AMAZING, I loved it, and I want. To. Go. There. Now. :D:D:D**

**Look out for the epilogue, and for Veiled Thorns. I will post an author's note on here when it's starting to be posted. Should be soon. Love to all the amazing reviewers who have followed me faithfully and sometimes blindly through this fic, and I hope every single one of you will be as pleased with the end result as I am!!!**

**End of ramble.**

**Penultimate review?**


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